Publisher: The miserable life in agrarian reform settlements

Debates are always very heated during the sessions of the MST's CPI. The opposition has become hegemonic in conducting the work and there is an inherent predisposition to create embarrassment for the Government, based on the conclusions of the reports, which, according to the government supporters, would already be ready. In yesterday's session, which we had the opportunity to follow, however, there was a moment, let's say, "didactic". The hearings have already begun and this time Francisco Graziano Neto was present, a specialist in agrarian rule, with a doctorate completed by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation and extensive experience in the subject, including as a former manager of INCRA, save for better judgment, in the Government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso .

Francisco Neto gave a real lesson on the subject, dispelling doubts and, more importantly, showing the various problems related to this issue in the country. Problems that, by the way, go far beyond ideologies, which do indeed contribute to clouding these discussions. The bottlenecks are immense. It begins with the absence of reliable data and information, produced by official censuses, on the numbers of agrarian reform in Brazil. The available data are obtained in a timely manner, through academic research. This information is reliable to a certain extent, but, as we stated before, it is not aggregated data.

Then, concretely, according to the researcher, we are facing a series of problems, which make the life of the settlers a "miserable" life. Let's go to some of them: a) There is a significant number of frauds in the acquisition of these lots, that is, people are contemplated who, in theory, would not meet the desirable profile. There are even a large number of civil servants; b) Sometimes, such settlements are established in areas with no agricultural vocation, with lots distributed to non-farmers, which explains the failure of these projects; c) The settlers do not receive any type of advice or training to carry out agricultural activities in the area; d) "Grileiros" appear within the settlements themselves, buying other people's lots, which contingency the need for the Government, first, to put ordem in the house before acquiring new land for agrarian reform.