Resources for finding farm land in Brazil

My partner and I (soon to be wife) are planning a move back to Bahia and want to purchase ˜20-200 ha of farm land. To me it seems pretty chaotic and I don't trust the real estate sites to be an accurate picture of available properties. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations in making the search? We're looking to start a restorative agroforestry project so it's a bit more flexible than a traditional farm.

Thanks!
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@rnbtg
Rural land is tricky it must be vetted by the gov.
There are restrictions.
Foreigners are not allowed to purchase rural land in Brazil for investments. Rural areas in Brazil are considered protected, and the government does not allow these areas to be purchased by people or corporations that are not Brazilian. However, some caveats do apply to the law.
Foreign individuals who have applied for and were granted residency in Brazil may acquire rural land. Similarly, businesses with a branch legally set up in Brazil are also eligible to purchase rural real estate. However, there are some restrictions on the size, scope, and location of the rural land that can be purchased in these situations.The restrictions are as follows:
Resident foreigners are allowed to acquire up to three rural modules without permission. In Brazil, a module is defined as the minimum size needed for a family to thrive and live. Depending on the region, modules vary in size. Under the restrictions put on foreigners for rural land, any individual or company with residency may own up to three without special permission from the government.
Resident foreigners can acquire no more than fifty modules each. After the first three modules, resident foreigners must gain permission from the Ministry of Agricultural Development.
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@rnbtg

Depending upon where in Bahia ....
I own a smallish place in the chapada near Piata, that I purchased from Ser Lima, the primary real estate agent in the Piata environs....I certainly would recommend him, be wary that he is a provincial old man and a little bit pecuniary but he is basically trustworthy and straight forward......
Also be aware that Brazil frowns upon foreigners owning producing agricultural farmland.......as well they should ......
This is what you are going to have to do ....develop the skills to weigh people, to judge their honesty and intentions, because if you are going to live among strangers and do business with them, you need those skills .....and then find people willing to help you that you believe you can trust.....best way is to learn by trial and error, so start small ....
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I definitely am aware of the complicated rules for owning land including the whole urban/rural divide, differences in lots allowed between states etc. I wouldn't be purchasing anything until I have my RNE, am married, and would do so together with my partner as a joint venture. However I believe everything changes if you are a resident and purchase together with a Brazilian, in this case my soon to be wife, no? I suspect finding decent properties is a word of mouth and case by case scenario honestly (unlike the US with Zillow or whatnot), but was hoping for some experiences or recommendations others might have. I definitely appreciate the info and perspectives! Thanks
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@Inubia

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rnbgt,

Spend time in your target region and try a number of "corretores" to get different perspectives. Be really cautious because what seems obvious isn't always so. I bought a lot in an upscale rural condo on the side of a reservoir that had water so clear people used it for scuba training. Then bad management of the resource led to pretty chaotic water issues. Now we've refilled due to the recent heavy rains and the jetski people have destroyed any and all natural appeal for the place. I've seen others find their Shangri-La only to get new neighbors with a fetish for super-amplified sound systems that they feel important to share with everyone in their municipality. Then there are the logistics of food, medical facilities, transportation and just plain escapes to other marvelously different places to visit and get to know.

I'd spend serious time checking out the possibilities to save yourself from any buyer's remorse.

Any specific crops you hope for in your agroforestry pursuit? Sounds like an interesting plan.

Matt
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07/10/22 I've seen others find their Shangri-La only to get new neighbors with a fetish for super-amplified sound systems that they feel important to share with everyone in their municipality.

Matt
- @mberigan

THERE'S a Brazil-wide problem if there ever was one!  "Longterm hearing loss" has a Portuguese translation, but it's not a concept a lot of people think that they need to worry about.  😏

In cities, at least there are curfew laws that are sporadically enforced after 11 PM or midnight, especially in upscale neighborhoods.   In the countryside, you're at the mercy of the metalhead next door 24/7.
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lol the sharing music matt you just made my chuckle on my conference call lol . reminds me one neighborhood i moved to. evangelic with a mic and loudspeaker right beside my place every evening shouting triste stories. only took 1 week of endurance there before someone stole the mic and speaker from him.

Lived in some super rich areas, didnt like it. neighbors were horrid. every place I moved to was a new telenovella.

its going to take time to scout the land, We end up renting places that are for sale to get a full spectrum on what to expect house wise - bit time consuming however gives you more perspective into your neighbors.


All about that goldilocks zone.
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I have no clue on Bahia,s land availability.   i am licensed to pratice in Sao Paulo.

Also, out there in the sticks, you need to run anything you buy through INCRA, which is the Government body to validate if the land being made available to you is in fact transferable through deed. 

Many shady transactions that take place where the unsuspecting buyer takes land that is illegal to be sold in the first place, therefore unfit for any kind of  development.  A Native reserve or just florest land.

And yes, while you are being restricted, others in the Amazon go about clearing land like there is no tomorrow. We live in an unfair world.

The State of Sao Paulo has made land available to be sold,  rural and urban areas,  within the State, where it actually enacted the land, by public decree, to be acquired  on a sealed auction bid.  You send your bid, no escrow, and if your tender offer surpasses the appraised value, and no one else claims a higher bid, then it is yours to be bought.  So it is legit.  Each plot released to be bid comes with the enabling decree.


Also, in buying land, you already know it needs to have access to water, be it surface or ground water.  And you need to verify what type of soil , infra structure you are buying into.

In the  State of Bahia, last I heard, any property served by water is worth gold. A lot of our for export crops such as fruit, cocoa beans, are grown there. 

When you say sustainable practices, what you might actually mean is a smaller plot, where you might circumvent foreign land ownership barriers , if you are actually buying a "Chacara" or a Grange, unlike as if you were searching for farm land.  Chacaras are smaller land plots, where one  runs a small operation such as growing vegetables, livestock, bee keeping, those sort of things.   

A Chacara, defined as the smallest rural properity might measure....
in Sao Paulo might be the equivalent of 30 Acres, whereas in Bahia, it might be up to 60 Acres. 
A Chacara does not constitute productive farm land per se. 

That is my 5 cents.
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Rnbgt,

sprealestatebroker made an interesting point on how size matters in regards to available resources if you venture is in any way agro. There are places where a tiny piece of expensive land can produce huge rewards (financially or ecologically) and other places where 2000 hectares of "cheap" land might lead only to financial ruin and impossible ecological challenges.

And Mike, I'm with you on how living in upscale areas one can find themselves surrounded by not-such-great neighbors. The neighborhood I came to live in 13 years ago went from being a charming nearly-rural edge of town to a bustling almost-Miami-suburb-like place where status battles have made the highly concentrated "developer class"  a lot of excess wealth while the "real Brazil" becomes more of a forgotten myth.

To take a stab at trying to find that Brazil I fell in love with  many decades ago, my wife and I are taking a different tack by renting a small place in a more remote rural place where she had a lot of family farm experience. The goal is to simply experience the place and try to better comprehend both the people and their natural world, a world quickly being transformed as the asphalt and fiber optics stretch out across the backlands.

The small once abandoned house we recently rented (extremely cheaply) is coming together now. The new neighbors are all interested and very welcoming leading to a lot of time spent on their varandas or at their kitchen tables. We have challenges (currently a bicho barbeiro [Triatominae] issue which we're overcoming) but those kinds of things lead us to a more in-depth understanding of that ecosystem and those who are a part of it.

And at the end of the day, we have no hanging financial responsibilities or a place we need to sell in order to buy a next place (people with money here in the interior all buy "summer" places on the coast that they use only 1 month of each year - such a waste). We also leave a property owner better off financially and with a house that can more easily be sold or rented out again. Mostly, we have a great experience that we can try to repeat in yet another place OR (back to rnbgt's quest) we find a place we want to stay that meets more long-term needs.

Matt
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07/11/22 @mberigan

Matt,

That sounds very idylic! 

I jumped when I read "currently a bicho barbeiro [Triatominae] issue which we're overcoming" -- scary stuff, and not something to take chances on.  If the house is wattle and daub (the term in Sergipe is "pau-a-pique" or "casa de barro"; I don't know what they call them in Paraíba), with a thatch roof, I don't know of any way to solve that problem without replacing it with a brick house.  Good luck. 🤞🏻
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Wow lots of great responses and threads here

Inubia- That spot near Piata looks incredible. Chapada is an incredible region.

Loud neighbors- My partner (Baiana) loves to hate on that aspect of Bahia and asserts that its worse than anywhere else in the country lol. The plan is to live in an area where the neighbors are further away ideally...

Barbeiros- I work in health care and can't/am not providing health care advice to your particular scenario. I did some research for a traditional community in Para on this a while back, Para being where the problem is pretty bad at least in the post-PT era. You can treat pique-a-pau homes with insecticide, the issue being the actual source of them which may be the homes but more often than not it's a response to deforestation with colonization of mono culture palms like açaí, endemic infection of possums and the like so can be complicated. In Para SUS has not been active in testing or eradication and untreated infection does lead to heart failure. Tests are simple and widely available so worth being proactive to avoid the morbidity and mortality associated with covert or untreated scenarios. If the homes are the source then removing that environment with a different structure would be a big step in the right direction, complicated if renting for sure.

Grilagem- We have small plots of land she owns we can stay in and that's basically the plan. Move back there, then rent in areas, get to know the neighbors and region, do deep research and hopefully make personal connections. I worry about grilagem but also expropriation of traditional lands as well which I'd want no part in. I can't find the original laws I looked up, but the whole 25% of land per municipality limit for foreigners and 10% per nationality etc is changed when the land is held by a Brazilian I believe no? There's plenty of options like my wife owning it and changing it when I get citizenship, or just purchasing a smaller plot which may be our desire anyway somewhere in the 20-60ha range is sort of the sweet spot. SP would be simpler in lots of ways, but sadly we like the people, fruit, climate, and culture of Bahia better.

Agroforestry- The plan is to have domestic crops for sale and honestly for solidarity projects as well as one or maybe two export crops (coffee or chocolate depending on elevation and terrain) with slow growing hardwoods that hypothetically you could use for wood decades down the line if you wanted. We would plant faster growing fruits (pineapple, passionfruit) veggies at the same time as fruit trees and natives that mature in years, and as natives create the canopy the shade is produced for coffee and Cacau. Brazil is probably a world leader in these techniques and there's lots of info with projects spread out all over the country, probably concentrated in RJ SP and BA but all over. We both are interested in integrating a big section of restored mata Atlantica on the property beyond the forest code requirements and for posterity. I've done this on a small scale, she grew up in the pre-cattle desert era where this was traditional. With cacau in Bahia it is still practiced as the trees need something resembling a forest to produce quality which is why the region is so pretty (though if you look deeper it is still very limited in terms of biodiversity despite appearances but better than just grass and cows!).
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@rnbtg good evening. Hope all's well!


I live in Minas and have some land I think you'd might be interested in. It's not close to the beach but there are waterfalls all around. One being the 3rd tallest in the country at 711ft with half of it shaped like a heart.

The land we have is mostly pasture, braquiária, so anything you want to plant, which I'm assuming is fruit, is actually welcomed.

My father has a vineyard with over three thousand grape vines of 3 different varieties. Along with guavas, jaboticabas, acerola, and so forth.

If you and the missus ever decide to try a diff state other than Bahia, I truly believe we should talk. My family doesn't plan on moving out of here, it's my dad's birthplace, so you'd have a solid connection for years to come.

I lived on Cape Cod for 14yrs, and still work from my computer and have family there. I know a good place when I see one. This is a piece of heaven on Earth with a lot to offer.

Look me up on Instagram @helbertq

I have drone footage there.

Best regards!

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@rnbtg just seeing this one now. Now I'm certain you should look me up. You'd be away from people but not isolated. You can plant and have livestock. The city is called Conceição do Mato Dentro. Distrito Itacolomi

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We found a place already but thanks!

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