Adverts
President Jair Bolsonaro signed on Tuesday (10), in a ceremony at the Planalto Palace, the Provisional Measure (MP) that institutes a new land regularization program of the federal government. The objective is to grant, over the next three years, around 600 thousand rural property titles to occupants of public lands of the Union and settlers of agrarian reform.
The number represents about half of an estimated 1.2 million precarious possessions, including around 970 thousand settled families who have not yet obtained property titles and another 300 thousand squatters in non-designated federal areas, according to the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), the agency responsible for implementing the program.
“Through this provisional measure, we are implementing a measure with enormous social impact. It is a very important measure because it responds to a debt that Brazil has with society. The vast majority of these are small producers. The average area to be regularized by this provisional measure is around 80 hectares,” stated the Minister of Agriculture, Teresa Cristina.
According to the government, the provisional measure changes the time frame for proving occupation and direct exploitation. According to the previous wording, in order to proceed with regularization, the occupant would need to prove that his/her occupation preceded July 22, 2008. With the change, the time frame is now May 5, 2014, which coincides with the publication date of Decree No. 8,235/2014, which establishes general rules complementary to the Environmental Regularization programs of the States and the Federal District.
In a brief speech, in which he recalled the agricultural colonization work promoted by the military governments, President Jair Bolsonaro said that the provisional measure is a way of providing freedom for rural producers to undertake business in the countryside. “We increasingly come to ensure that the State stops persecuting those who produce and helps those who want to undertake business in our country,” he said.
Computerized analysis
The Provisional Measure establishes requirements for the land regularization of rural properties of up to fifteen tax modules, which is a unit fixed for each municipality, which can vary from 180 hectares, in locations in the southern region of the country, to 1,500 hectares in the Amazon, for example.
According to the government, the occupant of an area that can be regularized must present a series of documents, including the plan and descriptive report of the area signed by a qualified professional, the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), in addition to proof of direct and peaceful occupation prior to May 5, 2014, which may be done through remote sensing (satellite images). In these cases, after analyzing the documents, through an integrated system that cross-references information from several databases, INCRA may waive the need for a prior inspection of the area.
“He [the occupant] will have to prove that he has been living on this property for five years, since 2014. He will have to attach a satellite image, and proof of his registration as a rural producer. There are countless documents. When he goes to the property registry office to obtain his title, deed, and registration, he will have to present the consent of the neighbors, he has to present the georeferencing, there are a series of requirements, but they are interconnected in a computerized system, which will be much faster,” explained the special secretary for land regularization, Nabhan Garcia.
According to the government, the text of the MP will provide for mandatory inspections for properties that are subject to an embargo or environmental violation, that have evidence of fraudulent division or are involved in a conflict registered with the National Agrarian Ombudsman. Inspections will also be mandatory for properties larger than 15 tax modules.
Legal Amazon
In the Legal Amazon region, the government's priority is to speed up the granting of land titles under the Terra Legal program, which has around 55,000 ongoing processes. "Specifically, we have to address the demand that we already have, which is in Terra Legal, which is 55,000 processes awaiting analysis, which we need to load into the system and analyze," said Incra president Geraldo Melo Filho.
The new land regularization program could also receive around R$175 million from the Lava Jato fund. Created to receive amounts recovered from Petrobras by Operation Lava Jato, in an agreement with the United States, the fund has R$2.5 billion. The transfer of resources is being analyzed by the Supreme Federal Court (STF).
“There will be R$35 million for Incra, which will invest in technology and equipment for this procedure, and R$140 million has already been earmarked to be transferred to the states, in actions aimed at land regularization in their state land institutes,” stated the president of Incra.
