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Abstract
For five hundred years, Brazilian landless farmers have struggled for access to land. Government land redistribution through agrarian reform has been slow, causing grassroots peasant settlement groups to grow in popularity and strength. Over 600,000 families have been settled through grassroots and government settlement initiatives. While this effectively deals with land redistribution, the farmer's fate, once he is settled, is uncertain.|Many settled farmers question the success of Agrarian Reform as they continue to find themselves living an impoverished existence. Reform which fails to secure environmental and economic sustainability could leave settled farmers in worse situations than when they worked in the sugarcane fields.|This study attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis of factors contributing to the success and failure of the reform movement at the individual and community level. This study is multifaceted and includes ecological, economic and social aspects. Two communities of farmers in the Northeastern state of Pernambuco, Brazil were studied for approximately two years. Eight farmers from each site were interviewed on a weekly basis for one year.|The major research topics include: the relation between soil quality and individual and community performance; the potential for small subsistence farmers to succeed in the market economy; how funding initiatives influence land use decisions; the role of plot size as a factor in determining the viability of an individual's plot; and the role of social and political factors in shaping a community.|It became evident that no single factor causes the difficulties encountered in reform areas. Rather, success and sustainability hinge on a subtle blend of ecological, economic and social factors. Soil quality was relatively unimportant in comparison to economic incentives and plot size in influencing community prosperity.