Notícias
Interview to Forbes magazine - July 8, 2005
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was interviewed via e-mail by Richard C. Morais.
Forbes: Based on the tenor of the conversations at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, and the Doha round of negotiations unfolding, Brazil is in a unique leadership position to influence agriculture trade reform on behalf of developing nations. In Brazil’s agricultural circles, however, your government is being criticized for having become preoccupied with social issues and for having lost the momentum on the trade reform debate. Specifically, your government is criticized for not aggressively following up on the cotton and sugar subsidy WTO cases that Brazil won last year. Please explain to us what precisely your government’s priorities are in regards to agricultural trade reform? President Lula: The cotton and sugar disputes Brazil won at the WTO are the most visible and publicized cases, but Brazil has been involved in a number of other cases that affect the interests of its agricultural sector, cases related to bananas, poultry, frozen chicken, orange juice, soluble coffee, and apples (as a third party).
Some [cases] are also following up on the cotton and sugar [WTO decisions], since the United States and the European Union are under the obligation to implement the rulings and recommendations of the Dispute Settlement Body. There is still a lot to do with regard to the monitoring and enforcement of those recommendations.
Also, the dispute on frozen salted chicken cuts is now entering the appeal phase. Brazil is also actively pursuing its agricultural negotiating objectives in the Doha Round, together with the G-20. By the end of this round, we hope to see a real reform of agricultural policies, with the end of export subsidies, substantial reductions in domestic support and significant improvements in market access.
Forbes: Property rights enforceable through a relatively efficient judicial system are the bedrocks of modern societies. Societies that do not enforce this concept-even those with great economic potential- are forever damned to the under performing economic half of the globe. Traveling through Brazil, it was clear to me that your country suffers terribly and unnecessarily because of murky property rights-a curse that bedevils the poor and rich alike-a nebulous environment that encourages the country’s worst criminal elements. Why have successive governments in Brazil failed to tackle this issue? What is your government doing to address this deep-rooted problem?
President Lula: Property rights and rural land ownership issues have never been completely resolved in Brazil-and this is a historic liability that our government needs to deal with. Agrarian reform was never completed in our country. Even today, in the 21st century, in hard-to-reach farms in the interior, there is still exploitation of slave labor, which cannot be tolerated. This has resulted from a process of unequal and unfair modernization. It is more than a mere coincidence that today Brazil is one of the 15 largest economies in the world, yet has the second worst income distribution on the planet. We have taken strong actions to change this situation. We have been peacefully and productively promoting an efficient agrarian reform program. Within our Ministry of Labor and Employment, we established a program
to combat slave labor that has received praise from around the world. To combat the problem of what you called a “nebulous” legal environment with “murky property rights”, in March 2004 we launched the National Program to Register Land and Document Rural LandOwnership,whichwillestablishasatellitemonitoring system to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the procedures for identifying and regulating all of Brazil’s national territory. We have also worked forcefully to establish environmental policies that are economically and ecologically sustainable.
Through such approaches, since I took office, we have already demarcated eight million hectares as forest Conservation Units, meeting our target far ahead of the schedule we had agreed on with international organizations for 2007. Establishing a clear legal framework for Brazil’s national territory will tend toreducerurallandconflictssignificantly,whilestimulating productivity and reducing social exclusion in rural areas, without putting at risk the natural resources that belong to future generations of Brazilians.
We are fully aware of how important this is for Brazil’s economic development: agribusiness has been one of the primary sectors responsible for Brazil’s record-setting exports last year, which surpassed the $100 billion mark. That success resulted from combining well-integrated public policies aimed at both agricultural entrepreneurs and family farmers. In our view, there is no incompatibility between the policies aimed at these two sectors, but rather a perfect marriage between economic development and social justice, which is the primary goal of my government.