Brazilian agrarian reform: limits and perspectives from the 1988 Constitution

Abstract

The objective of this article is to demonstrate and debate the contemporary model of the Brazilian agrarian structure. Based on historical elements, we seek to presente the construction of landownership as a product of the country's socioeconomic and political development. Continuing the discussion, an effort was made to analyze the contemporaneity of agrarian reform in Brazil, having as a time frame the post-Constitution period from 1988 to the first half of 2021, pointing out its limits and perspectives. The proposition of the debate was fostered by the question: how was the public policy of agrarian reform built from the 1988 constitutional text and what are its effective results in the current reality of rural Brazil? To answer this question, the analysis of the contradictions of reality was used as a method of investigation, since it is not given, but presentes itself as a product of material práxis and its dialectical and historical movement. To support the debate, bibliographic research was used, as well as analysis of the legislation that regulates agrarian reform, as well as official data collected from IBGE, Dataluta, INCRA and CPT. The data collected enabled the qualification of agrarian reform as na expression of the agrarian question and its contradictions. It was then found that the Brazilian agrarian reform, although with advances, has great limitations as a result of its historical construction and political impositions arising from the agribusiness versus peasantry contradiction, that is, the class struggle present in the countryside.