Pastor Moises Martins

Controversies over government plans to facilitate the sale of land to foreigners

In recent days, rural associations have been called to Brasilia to address the issue. In mid-February, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said the issue would be resolved in 30 days.

The Michel Temer government is finalizing plans to facilitate the sale of land to foreigners in Brazil and attract investments for agribusiness.

The initiative is well regarded by the Ministries of Agriculture, Finance and Foreign Affairs, but displeases sectors of the Armed Forces, landless groups and some farmers' associations, who say they see risks to national sovereignty and fear a reduction in food production.
The government has not yet defined the details of the proposal or decided how it will be implemented. Some advisers are urging the issuance of a provisional measure, which would depend on a signature of President Michel Temer to take effect.
In recent days, rural associations have been called to Brasilia to address the issue. In mid-February, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said the issue would be resolved in 30 days.
But parliamentarians and farmers' groups are pushing for plans to be discussed and voted on by Congress. There is already a legislative proposal on the subject, which is being processed as a matter of urgency and is ready for consideration by parliamentarians.
Bill 4059 eliminates the current restrictions on the purchase of land by Brazilian Legal Entities with foreign capital.



Today, Foreign Individuals or Law Entities with foreign capital can buy a maximum of 15 rural modules in Brazil. The size of a rural module varies in each municipality, ranging from 5 to 100 hectares.

Foreigners can not hold more than a quarter of the land of each municipality, which, in theory, makes it impossible for them to occupy more than 25% of the national territory.

Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi is in favor of easing the rules for the purchase of land by foreigners, but only for so-called perennial crops (which require medium- or long-term investments), such as coffee, cane, eucalyptus and orange.

Maggi advocates maintaining restrictions on annual crops such as soybeans and corn.

In a recent interview with O Estado de S.Paulo, he said that foreign funds dedicated to annual crops may decide not to plant if product prices are low.

"This would be a chaos for the economy, for municipalities, for transport, for everyone," he said. Perennial crops would be immune to this risk, he said.

President of the National Association of Soybean Producers (Aprosoja), Marcos da Rosa agrees to maintain restrictions on foreigners in annual crops.

He criticizes the urgency with which the government has dealt with the issue and advocates that the proposal be passed by Congress. "There has been a run-in by the Executive."

A member of the ruralist group and one of the main proponents of loosening the rules, Deputy Luiz Carlos Heinze (PP-RS) says that the proposal could change to meet requests from some groups.

Heinze says that the approval of the theme was one of the conditions that the ruralist party presented to the then Federal Deputy Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ) to support him in the election for the presidency of the House in 2015. Another condition was the "solution of the question Indigenous ", according to the deputy.

For Heinze, the flexibility of the rules will especially favor the forestry sector (industries that use wood and its by-products, such as pulp and paper).

Today foreign companies that operate in this area have to buy from local suppliers, but many of them would like to have their own plantations.

"Brazil does not have enough capital to invest in this sector, which takes 20 or 30 years to make a comeback."

Today, according to INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), sent to the BBC Brazil, foreigners own 2.8 million hectares of land in Brazil, an area slightly larger than that of the State of Alagoas and equivalent to 4.5 % Of the country's arable land.

The largest groups in Brazil are Portuguese (702,000 hectares), Japanese (362,000), Lebanese (281,000), Italians (173,000), Spanish (106,000) and Germans (94,000).

According to Elisa Pinheiro de Freitas, professor of geography at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul in Corumbá, it is probable that the total land held by foreigners will be much larger.

"We start with the idea that there are oranges: the lands are in the name of Brazilian people, but whoever is behind the capital is foreign," she told the BBC.

Freitas says that alleviating restrictions on foreigners' participation in Brazilian agriculture "can cause a lack of control of the amount of land that starts to produce only commodities aimed at the global market, such as ethanol and soy."

For the researcher, the advancement of foreigners would reduce the area of ​​family agriculture - responsible for the production of 70% of food consumed in the country, according to the government.

She says she still believes that the expansion of soybeans and cane would increasingly push livestock to the Amazon, a process already under way that would accentuate deforestation.

National Coordinator of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), Alexandre Conceição says that the liberation of the sale of land to foreigners would reduce the areas that can be used for agrarian reform.

He also said that the bill would call into question national sovereignty, an argument also used by military opposing the project.

In a hearing in the House in July, a representative of the Ministry of Defense criticized the proposal to end restrictions on the purchase of land by Brazilian companies with foreign capital.

"In summary, this mechanism removes from the state the prerogative of monitoring and control over indirect land acquisitions by foreigners," said sea captain Paulo Cezar Brandão.

Concerned with convergence, the MST proposes an unusual alliance between "the Armed Forces and social movements to defend the national territory" and prevent Brazil from being "handed over to foreigners".

Source: BBC