Mapa improves Land Credit Program to facilitate access to land for family farming

A new decree published by the Presidency of the Republic began the process of reformulating the National Land Credit Program (PNCF). The changes, announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa), aim to reduce bureaucracy and expand family farmers' access to land credit, qualifying the hiring process and making the granting of financing to rural workers faster.

Decree No. 10.126/2019 deals with the new management of the program, with the definition of Mapa as the manager for the regulation of public policy. The text also changes the name of the federal initiative to Terra Brasil – National Land Credit Program and transfers the responsibilities attributed to the National Council for Rural Development (Condraf) to the Secretariat of Family Agriculture and Cooperatives (SAF).

The changes allow the next steps to improve the program to be carried out. One of them will be the simplification of the processing flow of financing proposals, which currently has a total of 14 stages, and will now have fewer than six stages. Optimizing the process should result in a significant reduction in the average contracting period for operations, from the current two years to approximately six months.

A measure that will contribute to making the process more effective will be the transformation of the various stages of social control, with unions, municipal councils and state council, into the Single Stage of Social Control in the Municipality, through the Municipal Council for Sustainable Rural Development.

“Land credit policy is a priority within the Ministry of Agriculture and the federal government. And so that we can give access to this policy to farmers who actually need to access the purchase of land, we have reformulated the program so that it is more agile and acts at the end for those who need it, removing intermediaries and working with farmers directly”, he highlights. the Secretary of Family Agriculture and Cooperatives, Fernando Schwanke.

The new conception of the program will also establish the preparation of a technical project, which will integrate items such as land acquisition, technical assistance, infrastructure and production costs, including an economic feasibility report and payment capacity, and no more than a financing proposal.

With the technical project, rework resulting from poor demand qualification will be reduced, allowing the reduction of analysis stages and the management of agricultural and climate risks, with improvements in the planning of the producer's agricultural activities and the productive viability of the rural property. .

It is also planned to grant authorizations so that public and private Technical Assistance and Rural Extension companies, qualified and accredited by Mapa, can prepare technical projects, preventing the selection of the beneficiary from being conditioned on a declaration of eligibility from the union.

Other planned changes are the qualification of projects by the Mapa Federal Agriculture Superintendencies in the states; greater autonomy for the farmer with self-declaration and proof of eligibility; the implementation of procedural flow with electronic document management, for greater agility and control over procedures; greater efficiency in controlling the program, through the integration of the federal government's database and the improvement of supervision and monitoring procedures, following an action plan prepared by SAF and which includes all recommendations from the Federal Audit Court (TCU ).

Positive numbers

Even having focused on reformulating the program, the Secretariat of Family Agriculture and Cooperatives achieved important results in 2019. As of October, 836 families had benefited and another 760 proposals are in the contracting process, totaling 1.596 families. The amount is significant compared to the results of 2017, when 333 families benefited, and 2018, with 399 families served by the program.

“We are hiring 4 times more than last year and this objectively shows how Mapa recognizes the importance of this policy of supporting family farmers and is working to make it even better”, highlights Schwanke.

In 2019, more than R$19 million were released under the Land Credit program, with non-refundable resources (SICs), from the subprogram to combat rural poverty, for structuring production units. The resources will benefit 784 families of rural workers already hired by the Program.

Among the states with the largest number of proposals to be contracted by the end of the year, under the Terra Brasil program, are Rondônia, Santa Catarina and Espírito Santo.

Another positive result presented by SAF in this first year of government was the reduction in the default rate of the Land Fund portfolio from 27,35% to an average of 12%, showing that the process of implementing the new management dynamics of land resources Land Fund of the Land Credit Program is already reaping its first fruits.