Since its inauguration, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s government has adopted economic policies that attempt to subordinate the Brazilian economy to international financial capital. This has meant the opening up of the national market to products from abroad; maintaining high interest rates in order to attract and remunerate international financial capital; privatising state companies and denationalising important sectors of the national economy, again in an attempt to entice international capital; and dismantling the role of the state, both in the strategic sectors of the economy (like the steel industry, ore, fuel, electricity, and telephones) and scrapping basic public services, like education, health, public transport.

An integral part of the model described above has been the structural adjustment of agricultural production. The neoliberal policies adopted by the government may be summarised as follows:

1. To stimulate the establishment of large landed estates that produce grain for export, particularly in the Centre -West region.
2. To stimulate the oligopolisation of control over the internal agricultural market by large corporations, the majority of which are multinationals.
3. To instigate a selection process whereby certain small farmers integrate into agro-industry, reducing drastically their total number, increasing technology and selecting the most appropriate region for each product.
4. The disappearance of subsistence agriculture, especially in the Northern and North-eastern regions;
5. To dismantle the so-called agrarian public sector, reducing the state’s role in the regulation of stocks, in technical assistance, in agricultural research, and in the spending of public resources on rural credit.
6. To transfer control of biotechnology in favour of the large multinational groups and to dismantle INBRAPA.
7. To reduce employment in agriculture by approximately 5% per year.

The consequences of the economic model in general and of agricultural policies in particular, were easy to predict. Rural social movements, together with intellectuals concerned with in the ‘agrarian question’ had already warned that this model would undoubtedly bring about a the increased concentration of land, even greater concentration of income in the countryside, greater dependency for imported provisions for the cities, greater dependency on the agro-industries controlled by multinationals, and, as a result, an augmented impoverishment of the rural population. The consequent impractibility of family farming and thus, the impractibility of agrarian reform would serve only to increase social tensions in the countryside. The analysis of statistics and facts reveal the disaster in rural areas provoked by the government’s model:

1. Rural Credit: In the period 1975-79, 19 billion dollars per annum was spent on agriculture. Under the Cardoso government the amount has been drastically reduced to 4 billion dollars.
2. Agricultural Subsidies: From 1970 to 1985, subsidies amounted to US$ 31 billion. Sine 1985, they have ceased to exist. Note that among member-states of the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) alone, US$ 360 billion a year is spent on agricultural subsidies. In the US, 50% of liquid income of the average farmer originates from federal government subsidies deposited in framers’ accounts.
3. Bankruptcy of Agricultural Establishments: From 1985 to 1966, according to the agrarian census, 942,000 farms disappeared, 96% of which were smaller than one hundred hectares. From that total, 400 thousand establishments went bankrupt in the first two years of the Cardoso government, 1995-96.
4. Area under Cultivation: Between 1985-96, approximately 2 million hectares ceased to be cultivated. When the economic survival of a farmer is threatened, the first thing he does is reduce the area of cultivated land.
5. Agrarian Reform: The Cardoso government proudly claims to have already carried out the most extensive process of agrarian reform to date, having disappropriated 14 million hectares, an area 3 times the size of Belgium. It hides the fact that it was also under this government that millions of hectares of public land were taken over by large corporations, and only one of them alone, the building contractor CR Almeida of Paraná, swallowed up 4 million hectares in Pará, an area larger than Denmark. In Brazil, there are still 3,065 rural landowners that hoard 93 million hectares; that is, 11% of national territory.
6. Sales of Agricultural Machinery: In the 1980s, on average, 65,000 tractors a year were purchased. The average figure during the first four years of the Cardoso government was only 22,000 thousand machines per year.
7. Agricultural Work: Agriculture has always been a labour absorptive activity. Between 1985 and 1996, the amount of workers employed in agriculture declined by 5.5 million. Among them, 2 million rural wageworkers lost their jobs, the majority in the sectors of sugar cane, cotton, cocoa, and coffee.
8. Agricultural Imports: In the 1980s Brazil traditionally imported around one million dollars worth of wheat, apples and products that are unable to be produced in Brazil. From 1995 to 1999, this annual average leapt to 6.8 billion dollars, with the importation of many products cultivable here in Brazil.
9. Transferral of Wealth: From 1995 to 1999, there was a transfer of 24 billion reais (US$ 1 = approx 1.8 reis) from agriculture to urban sectors.
10. Agricultural income: In 1994, income from agriculture was 78.3 billion reais. By 1999, it had fallen to R$ 72.4 billion.
11. Rural exodus: Because of this agricultural policy, there has been a rural exodus of 4 million Brazilians in the period from 1995-99. Indeed, according to internal studies conducted by the government itself, it is predicted that if the model continues, between 8 and 13 million people will have to leave the countryside in coming years, especially those in the rural Northeast.
12. Rural Default: Between 1997 a 1999, the defaulting on rural credit grew by 182%.
13. Per Capita Production: In 1995, grain production averaged 522 kilograms per person. In 1999, this had fallen to 503 kg per person.
14. Farming Production: In 1999 it was 269.4 billion whilst in 1995 it had totalled 269.8 billion. Or rather, in five years, the total value of agricultural production had not grown, according to the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.
15. Investment: A recent study of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation shows that the average family of small producers would require an investment of R$ 30,000 mil reais in order to ensure productivity.
16. The professor of the University of São Paulo, Guilherme Dias - who had served as secretary of agricultural policy under the first Cardoso government — indicated in a study that 42 billion reais in rural credit would be required, whilst the government presently applies maximum of 8 billion.
17. Guilherme Dias denounced his own government for the fact that banks hoard 11% of all credit destined for agriculture. This represents the highest administrative charge in the world. In the ‘developed world’, banks charge between 4 and 6% interest.
18. Once again according to Prof. Guilherme Dias, under the present agricultural model only 10% of the 780,000 rural businesses are financially viable, whilst only 700 thousand of the 2 million family farmers remain so.

The implementation of the elite’s agrarian model will bear enormous consequences, with the marginalisation of small farmers, the impractibility of agrarian reform, and the increased rural exodus. There will also be grave social consequences for the urban population.

Let us, then, present some alternatives. It is up to us to discuss and implement a popular project for agriculture: a project that is based upon other objectives and principles, one that resolves the grave social problems that exist in the countryside and equally affect the cities.

A popular project should be developed along the following general lines of agricultural policy.

1. Agrarian reform - the democratisation of landed property under the disappropriation of all unproductive estates and the massive and hasty distribution to the five million or so, landless families. Organising agrarian reform settlements in such a way to guarantee income and a permanent improvement in living standards.

2. Food Security — the development of agriculture aimed towards the internal market, aiming to guarantee the provision of high quality food to all Brazilians.

3. Strengthening of Family Agriculture- the implementation of agricultural policies especially those concerning of prices, subsidised rural credits and agricultural security which are capable of ensuring the increased income and productivity of the one million family farms.

4. Cooperatives and agro-industries - promote agro-industrial co-operatives in order to democratise access to the market and create conditions to improve farmers’ income.

5. Living Standards - valuing the rural milieu and its way of life and culture, guaranteeing all inhabitants an improved standard of living, better housing, transport, leisure and communication.

6. Employment - stimulate the rural employment, both in agricultural and non-agricultural activities. In addition, to guarantee the fundamental socio-economic rights of all those who wish to work as wageworkers.

7. Education — to guarantee access to primary education to all rural dwellers, improving the curriculum and the necessary conditions in schools, valuing, equally, the teachers and all educational activities. Create opportunities so that children, young people and adults, are all able to study.

8. Environment — develop policies to protect the environment and our natural resources, in such a manner that is conducive with farm production, promoting the rational use of both solar and hydroelectric power.

9. Semi-arid Areas — implementation of a special development plan for the semi-arid Northeast, by combating drought and seeking a permanent improvement in living standards in that region.

10. The Agricultural Public Sector — restore and reorganise the organs that make up the agricultural public sector (INATER, INBRAPA, CONAB, INCRA amongst others) rendering them at the service of the small-scale producers, and of the aforementioned agricultural development plan.

11. A New Technological Model — implement research and stimulate agricultural technology which is compatible with our soil conditions, climate and national resources; seeking an equilibrium between increased productivity and the preservation of the our natural resources and environment.

12. Industrialization of ‘the Interior’ - stimulate the labour-intensive industry, in particular the agro-industries in the provincial municipalities of the hinterland, in order to stimulate socio-economic progress equally in all regions of the nation, whilst creating employment opportunities, above all for the rural youth.

According to the Federal Government’s own statistics, small- and medium-sized properties under 100 hectares are responsible for 80.8% of rural employment, and for the production of over 50% of the nation’s total production: 54% of coffee, 79% of beans, 44% of corn, 45% of wheat, 64% of potatoes, 67% of tomatoes, 75% of bananas and 60% of cocoa.

Therefore, it is essential to guarantee that these small farmers have the stimulus to remain in the countryside lest they are forced to migrate to the cities, thereby merely lengthening the unemployment queues. One such form of stimulation is agricultural security.

Translated by Iain McInnes.