Brazil launched the 2025/2026 Plano Safra for family farming, expanding credit lines to R$78.2 billion—almost 50% more than the 2022/23 cycle. Loans aimed at small producers will carry annual interest rates ranging from 0.5% to 8%, with the federal subsidy for the programme estimated at R$9.5 billion. The plan also targets a 73.6% jump in mechanisation and other measures to keep young people and women in rural areas. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Finance Minister Fernando Haddad framed the larger credit envelope as part of a broader social-justice agenda. Haddad said the administration intends to finish its term with 25 million families paying little or no income tax, while 140,000 individuals earning more than R$1 million a year would begin contributing. The minister reiterated support for a bill that raises the tax-free salary threshold to R$5,000. Haddad used the launch to rebut criticism from former president Jair Bolsonaro, who had attacked the government’s economic policy after leading a demonstration on São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista that researchers estimated at 12,400 participants. The minister argued that Bolsonaro lacks standing to discuss taxation because he froze the income-tax brackets during his term and is “already asking for amnesty” before a Supreme Court ruling on the 8 January 2023 riot. Haddad added that closing legislative loopholes, or “jabutis”, that benefit wealthy taxpayers would continue despite congressional pushback.