Livelihood diversification by Brazil's peasantry has intensified as rural areas have become more integrated with the country's urban fabric and as landlessness and poverty have increased. Despite the growing awareness of pluriactivity by rural households, key agrarian institutions have not addressed this key feature of life of the people they intend to help or mobilize. This review looks at how two main agrarian institutions--the government agrarian reform institute (INCRA) and the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST)--avoid or are even hostile to notions of pluriactivity in their affiliated rural settlements. The paper concludes by suggesting that agrarian institutions adopt a territorial rather than sectoral approach to rural livelihoods.