Terra para viver e trabalhar: contribuições críticas ao programa nacional de crédito fundiário

Abstract

The present research work has the general goal of discussing the contradictions that pervade the struggle for land in contemporary Brazil, starting from the analysis of the National Fundiary Credit Program - PNCF, developed in the State of Rio Grande do Norte (RN), in the period between 2003 and 2010. The theme is approached from the “totality” perspective, seeking to comprehend, in the capitalist accumulation dynamics, the determinants of the agrarian issue, understanding it under the process of capital giobalization and financial dominion. The issues, contradictions and dilemma that mark the agrarian issue in contemporary Brazil circunscribe themselves in the context of constant tension and conflict existing in the struggle for use and appropriation of land, in the march of agribusiness, reprimarization and financiarisation of brazilian economy. This is related to a redefinition of the State’s role, in times of capitalist crisis. The field research was organized in three stages: visits to the institutions responsible for agrarian reform in the State of RN, such as INCRA and SEARA; visits to a few areas of land laons, in the municipalities of Angicos-RN, Fernando Pedroza-RN and Santana do Matos-RN (sample area) where we had informal meetings about the program and the beneficiaries experience; second, semistructured interviews with INCRA and State Land Loans’ managers, also a member of the state comitee of MST and the president of Rural Workers Union from the municipality of Angicos; the third stage of field research consists of semistructured interviews with beneficiaries (11 subjects) of the program in the aforementioned municipalities. The research led us to some results: expansion of the land laons program in the state; decapitalization of the beneficiaries of PNCF; evasion of property; absence of infrastructure to allow land permanency; slowdown and burocratization of fund release for basic and productive infrastructure related to land loans. So, the program reinforces land commoditization logic, the demand for land purchase is larger than the availabity, increasing estate prices; agricultural and livestock production is inferior to families needs. In what it concerns the brazilian State action in regards to the land reform challenge, in respect to the Lula administration’s eight-year time frame, we noticed an inflection in his performance: progressively, the perspective of providing settlements through land loans programs becomes relevant at the expense of expropriations and setup of rural settlements as a mechanism of land redistribution. In this respect, the Rio Grande do Norte state constitutes a remarkable case with a total of 107.927 hectares of area acquried by PNCF and 5.076 families benefited by the program, during the Lula administration (2003-2010). In the same time frame, we have 108.429 hectares of area acquried by INCRA and a total 4.418 settled families.