The Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defense approved, on Wednesday (24), the proposal that limits the acquisition of rural lands by foreigners. The text approved is the substitute of the deputy Claudio Cajado to the Bill 2289/07, of deputy Beto Faro.

Cajado kept the main points of the original project. By the text, foreign individuals or legal entities, including non-governmental organizations, cannot acquire or rent more than 35 fiscal modules - the unit of measurement in hectare defined by the Brazilian Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra) - for each municipality, for the collection of the Rural Territorial Tax. The variations take into account the soil quality, relief, access and productive capacity. In the north region, a fiscal module varies from 50 to 100 hectares; in the Northeast, from 15 to 90 hectares; in the Midwest, from 5 to 110 hectares, in the South region, from 5 to 40 hectares; and in Southeast region, from 5 to 70 hectares, in continuous or discontinuous area, observing the limit of up to 2.5 thousand hectares.

Moreover, the sum of the rural areas belonging to foreign people will be of maximum ¼ of the municipalities where they are, and people of the same nationality cannot buy or rent more than 40% of this limit, unless they are married with Brazilians under the community property regime. The objective, according to Cajado, is to avoid occasional frauds against the limits set by the rule.

The Congress, with the guarantee of the Executive, can authorize the acquisition by foreigners of real state that surpass this limits, once the implanted projects are considered priority to the development of the Country. The sale or donation of public lands will be prohibited for any case.

Environment
The project defines that foreign people or institutions can only rent or buy lands if the agricultural, forest and agro-industrial projects were environmentally sustainable and approved by the Executive. If the property is in the Legal Amazon  - The Legal Amazon comprises the states Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará,  Rondônia and Roraima and part of the states of Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Maranhão. The region comprises a surface of around 5,217,423 km² and corresponds to about 61% of Brazilian territory. It was established with the objective of defining the geographic delimitation of the political region that collects fiscal incentives with the purpose of promoting its regional development.  The region is populated by 24 million of people, it will be still necessary the consent of the National Defense Council. The license will be dispensed to acquisitions of up to four fiscal modules and the rent of up to ten modules.

Another boundary imposed determines that half of the total area of the rural lots be occupied by Brazilians. The rapporteur argues that the restriction responds to the social movements for agrarian reforms. “The guarantee of a lot area percent mandatorily occupied by Brazilians reduces tension focuses that could reflect negatively over the internal order and social peace,” he defends.

Alterations
Cajado’s substitute matches the project with other proposals on the theme (PLs 2376/07, 3483/08 and 4240/08), with the main objective of making the text of the proposal clearer. For instance, the term “non-governmental organization established in Brazil” is altered to “acting in Brazilian territory”. The latter definition allows limiting a NGO that acts in the Country, but that is not established in our territory.

Current Rule
The current law limits the acquisition of rural property based on another unit of measurement, the rural module. The Law 5.709/71 limits in 50 rural modules, in continuous or discontinuous area, the acquisition by foreigners. Attached to the concept of family property, the rural module is the minimum area so that a rural worker can provide his family. 
The fiscal module, on the other hand, is calculed for the municipality and takes into account the type of dominant exploration, the income of this activity and other explorations in the municipality. It is the unit used to characterize an area as a small farm, small or medium property. In Hidrolândia (State of Góias, Brazil), for instance, a rural module measures 3 hectares, whereas the fiscal module has 12 hectares.

The project will still be analyzed by other committees.