Hydric (In)security and the challenge of producing without access to water in settlements of agrarian reform Uberlândia - MG

Abstract

At the present, the issue of water has been gaining attention not only in the media, but also with regard to the regulation of public policies. It is clear that debates about environmental sustainability is of paramount importance, especially, when taking into account agricultural production and the quality of life of farmers and the population who consumes what is grown in the field. However, public policies aimed at the field often give priority to agribusiness at the expense of the peasant agriculture, which presently maintains itself through social movements that struggles for land and their permanence in it. With documents that regulate and legitimize the exploitation of nature in areas marked by the State (rural settlements) the peasants often fail to extract of the land what is necessary to support themselves, as the environmental aspect ends up being prioritized at the expense of agricultural production settlers. Thus, it is important to pay attention to the Settlement Development Plan (PDA - Plano de Desenvolvimento de Assentamento), because it is where the options are for the consolidation or not of an agrarian reform settlement project as well as the question of the use and access to water, which has become an obstacle to agricultural production and quality of life of rural settlements, since, the lack of water for agricultural production is one of the biggest barriers to the consolidation of an agrarian reform settlement, as is the case of four rural settlements projects in the county Uberlândia-MG.