The formation of the Brazilian agricultural space and the absence of an effective agricultural reform

Land grabbing as an obstacle to the realization of access to land

Abstract

The article examines how the historical formation of Brazil’s agrarian space structured persistent land inequalities and how land grabbing remains a central obstacle to the implementation of agrarian reform. The study’s main objective is to understand how land-usurpation practices—historically consolidated from the sesmaria regime to contemporary mechanisms of documentary fraud—prevent the realization of the right to access land and the fulfillment of its social function. The methodology adopted is inductive, based on a bibliographic review of classical and contemporary works in agrarian history, the political economy of land, and agrarian law. The results show that: (i) the colonial origins of land concentration were reinforced by legal frameworks that favored large landowners; (ii) the absence of effective state policies for agrarian reform has deepened socioeconomic inequalities; (iii) land grabbing remains active and modernized, with sophisticated mechanisms for the fraudulent acquisition of land; and (iv) recent policies, such as Bill 2,633/2020, tend more toward legalizing these practices than restraining them. The article concludes that overcoming Brazil’s land-tenure problem requires breaking with the historical logic of concentration and implementing public policies that prioritize the social interest of land, otherwise perpetuating cycles of violence, exclusion, and legal insecurity in rural areas.