Brazil Authorities Propose Further Foreign Land Ownership Restrictions
New proposals are being proposed to further limit foreign ownership of Brazilian land to a maximum of 3,000 hectares – in an attempt to control the ever growing number of large scale land purchases in rural regions of the country.
The new law would place restrictions on the number of ‘fiscal land modules’ – of 100 hectares each – that can be owned by overseas nationals. Brazilians and foreigners without a company will be able to own no more than 15 modules without seeking permission from the National Congress and companies with even part capital control in the hands of foreigners would not be able to own more than 30 modules (currently up to 100).
The elaboration of the proposal emerged as a result of an original mandate passed by the Lula da Silva (Workers Party) government in 2010 and has been integrated with the operations of the Institutional Security Office as well as the Ministries of Defence and Agrarian Development. Nothing has been stated with regards to whether the mandate will be passed to Congress.
Brazilian officials have stated that ongoing concerns stem from the pace at which land is being acquired beyond levels deemed as controllable as well as the fact that it sees that large scale acquisition levels as a potential threat to the country’s food and bio-energy security.
