Crop Plan will have a gain for those who produce food instead of commodities, says minister – 03/10/2023 – Market

The Minister of Agrarian Development, Paulo Teixeira, said this Friday (1) that the government wants to include in the next Crop Plan a gain for those who produce food to expand this production.

The proposal is part of a government plan to expand the area with food crops in the country, which includes the resumption of the Food Acquisition Program (PAA) by the federal government, the readjustment of school lunches and the creation of another program for encourage the planting of food in underutilized or degraded areas.

“We want to increase the area produced. Evidently in the Crop Plan we are going to put greater incentives for those who produce food. Not taking away the stimuli for those who produce commodities, but give a gain to those who produce food, because there is a lack of food in the country”, said the minister.

“It’s a new look without forgetting to look at what was already being done and was already successful. This area of ​​commodities was already successful and we are not going to disturb what was successful. We are going to strengthen it. There is no contradiction between the two” , he added.

LAND REFORM

Teixeira also stated that the government intends to resume the agrarian reform policy as quickly as possible, despite acknowledging that the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) does not currently have the resources to acquire land. The budget for 2023 is only R$ 2 million.

The intention is to find alternatives, and two are being analyzed by the government. One of them is to use agrarian debt bonds to pay for land, in the case of land considered of interest for agrarian reform. The other is to obtain land from large state debtors.

“We can study alternatives for awarding areas to large debtors. The large debtor, if he is being executed, he can say ‘I’m going to give the State a farm’ and we can use it for agrarian reform. These are the strategies we can use “, he said.

Teixeira also stated that the government is concerned about possible land conflicts. At least three foci, in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and southern Pará, have already been identified. The ministry created a mediation commission and is already starting to analyze the cases.

“The team will study and take care of it. So, for all land conflicts in the country, we hope that the parties seek us out so that they don’t escalate, so that we have peace in the countryside,” he said.

The minister also said that he opened a negotiating table between the federal government, the government of Bahia, representatives of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) and the company Suzano to find solutions for an agreement that had been reached in 2011 on the lands of Bahia company.

Members of the MST who had been on Suzano’s farms in Bahia since last week left the land on Tuesday following court decisions for repossession.