Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0049/00494.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 50KB | 770 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00494}
$Pretitle{220}
$Title{Brazil
Chapter 2D.   Sharecroppers and Tenant Farmers}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{P. A. Kluck}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{urban
migrants
population
social
percent
city
labor
work
rural
favelas}
$Date{1982}
$Log{Figure 6.*0049401.scf
}
Country:     Brazil
Book:        Brazil, A Country Study
Author:      P. A. Kluck
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 2D.   Sharecroppers and Tenant Farmers

     From the abolition of slavery until the mid-twentieth century,
sharecroppers and tenant farmers formed the bulk of Brazil's plantation labor
force. They worked under a multiplicity of contracts and arrangement. Part of
this diversity reflected the variety of crops grown on fazendas. In return for
caring for a specified number of coffee trees, coffee plantations offered
workers a minimal wage along with a house and land for subsistence crops and
pasturage. In addition, workers received a piece rate for harvesting the
coffee beans. Planting the groves was done under a separate contract wherein
the family planted virgin land in trees and cared for them until maturity. In
return the family received little cash remuneration but planted corn and beans
between the trees and got the proceeds of the first coffee harvests.

     The rise of large-scale sugar mills on the northeastern coast in the
early twentieth century eclipsed sharecropping in the region. In the agreste,
however, assorted arrangements grew up in response to the variety of crops and
climactic conditions common to the region. Mid-sized landowners let plots to
sharecroppers who grew tobacco followed by corn and beans in a single
agricultural cycle. Cotton was typically sharecropped, and cotton
sharecroppers also split their subsistence crops with the landlord. The
traditional labor arrangement for cattle raising in the sertao was drawn along
the principle of shared returns; the vaqueiro received one-fourth to one-fifth
of a herd's calves along with the option of planting foodstuffs. In non-coffee
parts of the South, fazendeiros typically gave land in return for a portion of
the harvest of subsistence crops; alternately, they might leave a settlement
of squatters unmolested on fazenda land in return for a number of days' labor
from the squatters.

     Sharecropping varied regionally, but there was also tremendous diversity
in the terms a single plantation owner might offer his work force. Some hands
were simply resident laborers receiving a house and a small garden plot in
return for specified days of labor; still others received only a house. In
some cases a tenancy agreement might be contracted for a single year in which
an individual cleared the land and planted crops, then switched to a
sharecropping arrangement. Sharecroppers might split their harvest with the
landlord or, if they had a skill, give as little as 20 percent of their
crops. Fazendeiros varied too in the amount of seed they would provide and the
extent to which they reimbursed sharecroppers for improvements made on the
land and house. A variety of marketing arrangements where landlords bought
tenant crops at a discounted price plus the cost of credit a fazendeiro had
extended also entered into the balance. Workers were required to put in a
certain amount of labor on the landlord's crops, but here again, the actual
days and whether or not the sharecropper could hire a substitute varied. For
some skilled workers the fazendeiro might dispense with the general labor
requirement in favor of a simple sharecropping contract with a number of
specific tasks to be done.

     The plethora of contracts made the fazenda work force a highly stratified
one. The fazendeiro was at the top, but the steps in the social order were
minutely graded. Sharecroppers themselves contributed to this complexity.
Some were landholders in their own right or had a claim to a plot of land too
small to provide a living. Some were skilled craftsmen; others might own
shops. As a group they were highly mobile; in one plantation in Ceara in the
late 1960s the entire resident labor force had been born elsewhere. In an
average year (when there was no drought) over one-third of the resident labor
force left and was replaced. Most moves, however, were between fazendas in the
same municipality.

     The 1960s and 1970s did much to undermine the sharecropper's position in
traditional rural society. In the coastal Northeast and portions of the
agreste, mill owners took whatever land was marginally appropriate and put it
into sugarcane in response to government price incentives (see Agriculture,
ch. 3). Sharecroppers and tenants were displaced in the process. In the South
rising soybean prices encouraged owners to take land out of coffee,
eliminating yet more tenants. Between 1960 and 1975 the amount of agricultural
land held by sharecroppers and renters dropped nearly 40 percent; average
holdings declined by more than half from roughly 30 hectares per sharecropper
or renter to a scant 13. Even when sharecroppers were not expelled from
plantations, the land at their disposal was limited. Further, small farmers
who depended on rented land to supplement their inadequate holdings were
caught up in the same process. They were forced to seek wage labor as a
substitute for the income that rented plots had formerly generated.

Landless Laborers

     There were an estimated 5 million landless agricultural laborers in the
early 1980s; of these roughly 1.5 million had permanent employment. The rest,
commonly known as "cold lunches" (boiasfrias) or clandestines (clandstinos),
from their propensity to work without contract, were casual day laborers.
According to INCRA a number of seasonal agricultural workers had no documents
(which significantly limited their options for permanent work or receiving
social services). The proportions of women and minors were 87 percent and 95
percent, respectively.

     Numerous factors account for the dramatic increase in temporary labor,
among them changing cropping patterns and the growing mechanization of
agriculture. The Rural Labor Statute (1963) regulated contracts and salaries
for agricultural laborers. The legislation aimed at guaranteeing farm workers
and sharecroppers benefits comparable to urban workers. Its effect, however,
was to encourage plantation owners to limit their permanent work force and
rely instead on casual labor.

     From the perspective of the boias-frias this created a situation where
membership in a rural syndicate, although it guaranteed the benefits of a
formal contract, also limited employment opportunities. Further, although
boias-frias lacked legal guarantees and social benefits, their wages-on a
daily basis-were equal to or slightly exceeded those of permanent workers. In
fact, while real rural wages in general rose by roughly 50 percent between
1968 and 1977, those for casual laborers in Sao Paulo, where the phenomenon is
most common, nearly doubled.

     Boias-frias, of course, have no guarantee of employment. Casual laborers
are quite heterogeneous. They include those who work almost all year as a part
of a relatively fixed work group; those, often women and minors, who work only
periodically at peak seasons; and those who shift between agricultural and
urban employment. Small farmers represent another pool of potential
boias-frias; surveys in Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo found casual work accounted
for some 40 percent of the family income of small farmers. Some authors
suggest that the boia-fria phenomenon should be seen as part of a family's
survival strategy. A male boia-fria might work fairly regularly, and the
earnings of the women and children would supplement the family income. Urban
residence and employment opportunities provide a tenuous access to social
services unavailable in the countryside. It is clear as well that the wage
laborer's lot varies dramatically from one region to another. The options the
paulista has can hardly be compared to those of the Amazonian lab