Minister of Agrarian Development Guilherme Cassel of Brazil

been provided to the MST and other rural movements.

Cassel said it was "absurd" to cast doubt on the statistics provided by the government, because all of the families who have been settled have been fully identified by name and by their legal documents - information that has been provided to the MST and other rural movements.

Cassel has declared that the Amazon's biggest problem is juridical instability of land and is promoting a process of regularization in the region, he says, "to control deforestation.

Agriculture Minister Guilherme Cassel said the government's plan, part of the National Family Agriculture Reform Program (Pronaf), would make its first disbursements in July.

Brazilian Minister of Agrarian Development, Guilherme Cassel said the country will reassert President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's claim that biofuel does not necessarily compete with food production.

Yes, it is possible to produce biofuel and food," Cassel said during an interview with local journalists on the FAO conference.

Cassel said that the family agriculture is already in biofuels, with over 100 thousand families producing biodiesel, and that there is the possibility to produce ethanol as well.

Weather problems and falling prices have triggered several bankruptcies, and Minister of Agrarian Development Guilherme Cassel has acknowledged that there is a farm price crisis.