ASUNCION - Paraguay's government sent dozens of extra police on Friday to a poor rural region where peasant farmers demanding land redistribution have threatened to invade Brazilian-owned ranches. Tensions have risen in the Paraguayan countryside since President Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, took office in August, vowing to make land reform a priority for his center-left administration. Interior Minister Rafael Filizzola said 100 extra police would be sent to patrol the impoverished central province of San Pedro, a focus of tension between landless peasants and wealthy landowners, some of whom are from neighboring Brazil. "We're going to increase the presence of the police and the state in an area where threats are being reported at the moment," Filizzola told reporters. In San Pedro, where Lugo served as bishop for more than 10 years, militant peasants vowed on Wednesday to launch a wave of invasions of Brazilian-owned farms in the area next week to press their demands for land. Government ministers have said any land reform program will respect private property and have warned that anyone involved in farm occupations will be prosecuted. Peasant farmers' demands for land have increased since a soy-farming boom gathered pace five years ago in Paraguay, the world's fourth-biggest soy exporter. The sudden expansion of the area planted with soybeans has fuelled resentment over land ownership in a country where a small percentage of the population owns the most productive land. Peasant farmers occasionally invade commercial farmland and burn crops or machinery to protest unequal land distribution and the use of agrochemicals. Some blame large-scale agriculture for driving villagers to the cities. They want the government to impose export taxes on soybeans and beef, the country's top foreign currency earners, to fund a land redistribution program. San Pedro, which lies some 220 miles (350 km) from the capital Asuncion, accounts for only about 9 percent of the country's soy output and has relatively few Brazilian farmers. However, many hard-line peasant activists live in roadside camps or on the edge of farms in the province. Earlier this week, Brazilian farmers in Paraguay asked authorities across the border in the state of Parana to appeal to the Paraguayan government to safeguard their properties. The government in Asuncion vowed to protect the rights of the Brazilian farmers, who number more than 100,000. Most live in the provinces of Alto Parana, Canindeyu and Caaguazu, which lie along Brazil's southern border. (Writing by Helen Popper) Story by Mariel Cristaldo