Brazilian land tenure and conflicts: the landless peasants movement.

• Author: Barros, Carlos Pestana
• Position: Report

This article analyzes conflicts in Brazil involving landless peasants and the violence that frequently results from their invasion and occupation of privately owned rural land for the period 2000--08. Land ownership in Brazil is overwhelmingly and historically characterized by large, family-owned estates (Pichon 1997). The unequal and inequitable .allocation of land together with weak institutions, weak markets, and low asset endowment may make land reform a low priority (Binswanger and McIntire 1987, Sjaastad and Bromley 1997). In the absence of effective land reforms, these factors may lead to the occupation of land by the landless poor peasants by violent means (Assunrcao 2008). In such an environment, land-related conflicts are common and have been previously analyzed in several studies, with a particular focus on Africa (Andre and Platteau 1998, Deininger and Castagnini 2004) and Latin America (Alston, Libecap, and Mueller 2005).

Credit rationing is part of the problem, since without credit individuals may not be able to undertake indivisible investments, such as purchasing land, which have a long period of maturation. As a result, due to the lack of access to credit markets, the poor peasant may fail to escape from poverty by not being able to own land (Fenske 2011).

The landowners have responded to the threat of land invasion and occupation with large-scale evictions, adopting extensive livestock production and highly mechanized cultivation methods, which reduce the need for peasant labor on the farms, thereby creating obstacles to land reform (Binswanger, Deininger, and Feder 1995). In the light of these events, Latin American land reform has been described as a lost cause (De Janvry and Sadoulet 1989).

The political orientation of the leadership of organized peasants is an important determinant of land related violence. The political leadership of the main group of landless peasants in Brazil, known as Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST) or the Landless Peasants Movement, is a Marxist organization with ties to the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) or Workers Party--the political party that has been in power since 2003, first under President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva (2003--10) and now under President Dilma Rousseff. The MST homepage (www.mst.org.br) makes it clear that among its political objectives is the destruction of commercial agriculture in Brazil, one of the engines of Brazilian growth. Land reform through violence is an essential part of MST strategy to gain power, and is based on the Chinese and Cuban ideology and revolutionary experiences.

In this article, we extend the research on land conflict in Brazil by focusing on land occupation by farmers without land endowments. We analyze poverty, political effects, population density (Andre and Platteau 1998), and land endowment (Binswanger and McIntire 1987, Sjaastad and Bromley 1997) to explain these land occupations. Earlier studies have examined violence and land reform in Brazil (Alston, Libecap, and Schneider 1995; Alston, Libecap, and Mueller 1997, 1999, 2005). However, our study is the first to be undertaken at a national level using a contemporary data span. An additional innovation is the use of a count data model that allows for heterogeneity, endogeneity, and dynamics. Unobserved heterogeneity has been the subject of concern and analysis in many previous studies (e.g., Chesher 1984, Chesher and Santos-Silva 2002, McFadden and Train 2000). This type of model is used frequently for data concerning events, and its omission is likely to lead to inconsistent parameter estimates or, more importantly, inconsistent fitted parameters. Endogeneity also yields estimation problems causing biased results and may arise when a covariate is simultaneously determined with the endogenous variable or when a covariate is not inserted in the regression (Greene 2007). A dynamic Poisson model is also presented with lags of endogenous variables and leads of exogenous variables, enabling a more accurate analysis of the problem (Cameron and Trivedi 1998).

We begin with a brief review of the literature on land conflicts. We then describe the contextual background of land conflicts in Brazil and present a stylized model that predicts how political, institutional, and socioeconomic variables affect violent land occupation. Next, we present our data, discuss methodological issues, and provide our empirical findings. The policy prescriptions follow along with our conclusions.

Literature Review

A major study on the violent invasion and occupation of land by landless peasants in Brazil was conducted by Alston, Libecap, and Mueller (2005). They describe how land invasions led by the Landless Peasants Movement generated negative publicity for politicians, stimulated broad sympathy of urban voters toward the landless peasants, and led to further invasions. In another important study, Alston, Libecap, and Mueller (2010) develop a multi-principal, multitask model of interest group behavior to examine how groups with limited resources, such as the Landless Peasants Movement, influence government by manipulating media information to voters. They examine how the Landless Peasants Movement in Brazil molds information, and study the reaction of politicians in changing the timing and nature of policy. Meanwhile, Alston and Mueller (2010) find that land conflicts reduce the likelihood of tenancy, which results in a reduction in agricultural efficiency, a welfare loss to potential renters, and an expansion of the agricultural frontier through deforestation. Finally, a recent study by Oliveira (2008) examines land conflicts and deforestation in the Amazon region due to distorted agrarian, forest, and environmental policies, laws, and regulations (see also Pacheco (2009), Ludewigs et al. (2009), and Simmons et al. 2010).

Other factors such as population growth combined with limited economic opportunities may lead to an increase in land invasion and occupation, since they increase nonagricultural demand for land and intensify competition for a limited or decreasing amount of land available. This could also result in conflicts between groups, particularly in environments where risk is high and land is a key asset and source of livelihood (Andre and Platteau 1998). In contrast, property rights and institutional frameworks that safeguard these rights decrease land occupation (see, e.g., Alston, Libecap, and Schneider 1995, and Mueller 1997).

Land occupation has sometimes been considered a strategic policy in less-developed countries to thwart far left-wing insurgency. In Brazil, there is involvement of the current governing party, the Workers Party or PT, and elements of the Catholic Church in land occupation (Simmons et al. 2010). According to Ludewigs et al. (2009), land reform in Brazil is a powerful tool in the struggle to reduce rural poverty mid may attenuate environmental destruction, chiefly in the state of Amazonas (Simmons et al. 2010, Pacheco 2009).

Aspects that characterize the violence related to land reform in general and land occupation in particular are contextual variables such as poverty (Waeterloos and Rutherford 2004, Rigg 2006), population density (Simmons et al. 2010), and land productivity (Minten and Barrett 2008, Place 2009). Moreover, political forces, like the Brazilian left-wing Workers Party, also shape the land reform process (Alston, Libecap, and Mueller 1997, 1999, 2005). Institutional support for land occupations is manifested in measures such as the expropriation of land from the landowners by decree (Binswanger and Deininger 1993, Pacheco 2009). Other events, such as conflicts over water (Bakker et al. 2008), actions of resistance to land occupation, demonstrations supporting land occupation, generic conflicts related to land occupation, attempted murders, and death threats are all part of the backdrop to land reform and clearly may affect it.

Brazilian Land Reform and Violent Land Occupations

Brazil land tenure is characterized by large, family-owned properties. A federal land reform agency, INCRA (Instituto National de Colonizacao e Reforma Agraria/the National Agency for Land Reform and Settlement) was established in 1969. The government allocated funds to buy land and to redistribute it among poor families. Since its inception, INCRA engaged in lengthy, bureaucratic processes of land expropriation, with an average cost per beneficiary of $58,000. A Federal Ministry of Agrarian Reform was created in 1996. Land expropriation was expedited through the a priori selection of the land by community groups, establishing an agreement on a willing-seller/willing-buyer basis, paying the landowners in cash and funding the endeavors of the new peasant-landholders. The expropriation price per beneficiary decreased to $19,600. Grant financing is provided for complementary and community infrastructures. The Central Institute for Agrarian Studies was established to encourage discussions and research on rural reforms. A recent survey of Brazilian land reform can be seen in Simmons et al. (2010).

Land reform and rural conflict scenarios in Brazil have changed significantly since the creation and growth of landless peasants and rural workers interest groups, most notably file Landless Peasants Movement (MST), which was officially founded ill 1984, on the departure from power of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Alston, Libecap, and Mueller (2005), using a principal-agent model, describe this transition scenario.

Prior to the creation of the MST, organizations formed to promote and defend the interests of landless peasants and rural workers were too weak to be able to influence governmental land reform policies. At the same time, the powerful landowners, in contrast, could afford to spend both time and money on efforts to avoid expropriation, or to pursue claims for generous compensation from the government in the event of land reforms...