Registry Delays Lock Smallholders Out of Fair-Price Schemes

The Tierra Verde Land Registry in San Vicente is processing fewer than twenty new applications per month, though the office receives more than sixty. The backlog has reached 4,200 pending cases as of late July, according to registry director Hernán Müller, who spoke to the Herald on Wednesday. Farmers waiting for registration cannot access the Federal Fair-Price Scheme, a federal program that guarantees minimum commodity prices for smallholders who can prove legal ownership of their land.

The delay falls heaviest on new member-farms joining regional cooperatives, many of whom have worked the same plots for decades but lack formal title. Without registration, they cannot sell coffee or yerba mate through the federal exchange at protected prices and are forced to sell to middlemen at a steep discount. The Cooperative Council in San Vicente estimates that roughly eight hundred families are currently blocked from the scheme.

Federal Civic Affairs Minister Beatriz Coelho acknowledged the problem in a written response to a query from the Tierra Verde Assembly's agriculture committee in June, but offered no timeline for relief. The registry's staff has not grown since 2019, though the region's smallholder population has increased by roughly twelve percent.