RegularizAgro: Plan for the Regularization of Rural Properties

The Brazilian Federal Government has published Federal Decree No 11,105/2022, creating the National Plan for the Regularization of Rural Properties through the RegularizAgro programme. Its central objective is to implement the Brazilian Forest Code and to advance the review of the information held in the CAR — Brazil's Rural Environmental Registry.

RegularizAgro will propose measures to ensure compliance with the principles and guidelines for the environmental regularization of rural holdings and properties, under article 59 of Federal Law No 12,651/2012 — in particular through the CAR (Rural Environmental Registry) and the PRA (Environmental Regularization Programme).

Article 59 of the Forest Code requires the federal government and the states to set up Environmental Regularization Programmes for rural holdings and properties, with a view to bringing them into compliance with the Forest Code. CAR registration is a mandatory condition for joining these Regularization Programmes and for a rural property to be in environmental compliance.

At a time of international pressure to curb illegal deforestation and prevent agricultural production in protected environmental areas, progress on this agenda will give rural producers a reliable tool to demonstrate the legality of their operations and activities.

The programme will fall under the authority of MAPA — Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply — and will be primarily aimed at advancing the environmental regularization agenda. The challenge is critical for agribusiness, which will have an electronic registry reflecting the perimeter of each property and identifying its regulatory status — in particular as regards legal reserve areas, permanent preservation areas and water resources within the property.

The CAR is a self-declared electronic registry, and although many owners have already enrolled, in many cases the information has not yet been reviewed or, accordingly, validated. Once the information is validated by the competent public bodies, it will have the practical effect of effectively evidencing the environmental compliance of rural properties and providing a competitive advantage to those whose environmental information has been validated in the registry. Today, reliable, certified information has a positive impact on property-transfer transactions and on financing.

LUCIANA CAMPONEZ PEREIRA MORALLES

luciana.moralles@fius.com.br