1AGRARIAN REFORM IN TIMES OF GLOBALISATION1

Brazil is a country with a Ministry exclusively devoted to the question of agrarian reform. Virtually all the political parties support the idea and the majority of social scientists who specialise in agrarian studies are committed to explaining the "necessity " for such a reform. Curiously all this occurs at a time when agrarian reform in any meaningful sense of the term-as an initiative involving ample social and / or economic reform, as an ideological platform, or as an expression of a broad popular movement, has lost its actuality. The question is naturally posed therefore as to how such an apparent social consensus has emerged on the issue of agrarian reform. In the course of the article we will try to develop the following arguments: a) agrarian reform is a historically dated concept, associated with developmentalist and/or revolutionary ideologies which are no longer relevant; b) the social forces interested in promoting agrarian reform in Brazil have always been limited and in recent decades its base of social support has been restricted to economically and socially marginal groups. c) agrarian reform is taken on board by political parties, whether of the right or the left, because of and not in spite of its relative irrelevance