The Brazilian land reform is a possible strategy to reduce poverty and increase social equality, but it depends on efficient public policies capable of making the peasants selfsustainable. With the goal of presenting the main socio-economic challenges of 33 rural settlements of former landless peasantsin Rio Grande do Norte State (Northeastern Brazil), we evaluated socio, economic and environmental aspects of 631 families from these settlements and 16 “Restoration Plan for Degraded Areas” (PRAD), prepared between 2007 and 2010. The emancipation of a settlement, measured through income generation, schooling level, and changes in people’s environmental habits, was not related to the age of the settlement. Also, the income of a settlement is hardly... |