Livelihood strategies in settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon: Determining drivers and factors within the Agrarian Reform Program

Over the last decades, hundreds of thousands of families have settled in the Brazilian Amazon within the framework of the Agrarian Reform Program (ARP). The rationale behind the program is to enable settlers to earn their living by small-scale farming and producing an agricultural surplus for the market. This paper aims to analyze the settlers' livelihood strategies under the framework of the ARP and its objectives. The paper considers more than just land use shares. Income composition, capital (human, physical, natural, social, and financial), mediating process, and context are also included, and these reveal three groups of livelihood strategies. Most of the settlers have achieved the ARP goals, mainly by deploying livestock strategies, particularly milk production.