This article analyzes the formation process of the rural employers' resistance movement against the inspection of rural properties conducted by Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária - INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Land Reform) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in order to understand the ramifications of this action as opposed to the implementation of settlement policies from 1999 to 2002. This movement broke out in March 1998, led by big landowners from the Rural Union of the Municipality of Bagé, who called it "zero inspection". This unprecedented movement soon spread all over the State, an addition to the rural employers' opposition to the process of expropriation for land reform purposes. Throughout the article, the author maintains that the blockade the rural employers imposed on the inspections is directly responsible for the drastic decrease in the number of families settled by INCRA in the years between 1999 and 2002, which is in accordance with the second administration of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and its support for market-assisted land reform.
Land reform; Settlements policies; Rural employers; Inspection; Marketassisted land reform
