MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Land possession and peasants, the first strong clash in Rousseff's cabinet
Land possession has caused the first clashes in the newly named cabinet of President Dilma Rousseff with Agriculture minister Katia Abreu arguing there are no large estates ('latifundium') left in Brazil, while her Agrarian Development peer and a stalwart from the ruling party said a social approach was needed to the land and peasants issue. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesland and peasants issue....
Jan 07th, 2015 - 01:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Rather snobbish attitude is that not..
Its weird that 3rd world countries have headline issues that make it sound like its the 18th Century.
Jan 07th, 2015 - 02:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@2. Why is it weird? They are still in the 18th century. If not before. Just look at that reference to 'latifundium'. It connects to the Latin 'latifundia'. The huge estates 'owned' by the Roman wealthy. How did they appear? In the days of the Roman Republic only Roman citizens who were landowners could serve in the legions. While they were away fighting, it was often the case that there was no-one, or just a wife, to continue to operate the farm. They went bankrupt. The wealthy stepped in and bought the land at knockdown prices. South America isn't any different except that the land was stolen from the indigenous people.
Jan 07th, 2015 - 04:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It is fatuous for FatAss Dilma to head a government that claims to be for the people when 1% of farmers hold almost half the agricultural land and by implication have marginalised between 90k and 5 M 'farmers'. (Why don’t they KNOW how many?)
Jan 07th, 2015 - 07:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The reality is of course that Brazil is like France in that without agricultural subsidies from the EU they would be in penury. Can anybody seriously think that the ‘poor’ farmers of Brazil are capable of sustaining the huge harvests that fund the entire country? NO is the answer to that one.
So nothing will change other than the big farmers will be grow even bigger if DA Dilma and her ilk need more money to keep up with the Familia Bolsa.
“”However, Agrarian Development minister Patrus Ananias, a historic leader from the Workers' Party of Rousseff and who took office surrounded by peasants and small farmers organizations contrary to Ms Abreu nomination, openly countered her statements“”.
Jan 09th, 2015 - 07:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Patrus Ananias - a filthy communist, who would love to turn Brazil's well-run agribusiness into a Soviet style agrarian system. Although Rouseff is fully aware of this, and knows she cannot afford to screw around with one of the few money-making sectors of Brazil, she encourages the MST, a bunch of outlaws just out to disrupt the country and survive on massive government handouts. She is definitely digging the hole deeper. Stupid fat B.
“According to official data, 1% of Brazilian large entrepreneur-farmers own almost half the good farming land in Brazil and at the other end 90.000 peasants are still camped waiting for the government to comply with the promise of granting them plots of land”
If the official data is correct - that 1% of the farmers own 50% of the good farming land - which I see nothing wrong with, one thing that most people (conveniently) ignore, is the fact that this 1% of farmers, or their families before them, had to work and improve the land to turn it into what is is now. The problem with the peasants, is that they want to receive this land without ever having lifted a finger ....... If they are offered plots of land they are going to have to work to transform, they don't want it. They want what is ready, thanks to someone else's effort. And when they do get good land from the government, they usually sell it off instead of working it, and then re-join the ranks of the protesters wanting more land....and the cycle continues.
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