Guiding Principles:
Land Tenure in Development Cooperation

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Orientierungsrahmen:
Bodenrecht und Bodenordnung

 
Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Technische Zusammenarbeit
Abt. 45 / Div. 45

 

Günter Mertins (1996):
Land Tenure Regulations and Land Tenure Forms in Latin America:

2. Forms of land tenure in Latin America

A compilation of the major land tenure and property ownership forms is presented in illus. 1. Further subdivisions were not shown so as to present a better summary and classification. As opposed to other large regions of the third world, for example Africa (MÜNKNER 1996), the almost standard type of land tenure forms is striking, as well as the relatively small significance of group (tribal) property and their usage rights.

Illustration 1: Land Tenure Forms in Latin America

Holdings

Leasings

other Usage Rights

without legal rights
  • public (state) property (baldío)
  • communal property
    • indigenous community / group (ejido, comunidad indigena, resuardo indígeno)
    • co-operative
  • private (individual) property, for example:
    • large land holdings (latifundio)
    • small holdings (minifundio)
  • Money lease

esp. cash crops (short-term contracts; mostly mid-sized to some 100 ha farm areas)

  • Working lease

mostly small farms, often connected to latifundios (among others, colonato-, concertaje-, yanaconaje- huasinpungaje- sayana- system

  • Partial lease

mostly small farms, lagely in connection with large nad middle farms (among others, aparcero- mediero-system)
  • non-codified

for example indigenous groups mostly in the damp-hot lowlands

  • codified

for example, indigenous groups and / or families in the Mexican ejidos or Peruvian comunidades; often a connection of communal (pasture) and family (field) usage rights

 illegal occupation (squatting) and usage of
  • public lands and
  • private land tenure

Source: G. Mertins (1996) from various sources

 

Chart 1: Agrarian-structural characteristics of various Latin American countries

 

BOL

BRA

CHI

ECU

ELSAL

GUA

HON

COL

MEX

PAR

PE

1

1950

1985

1976

1974

1971?

1993

1993

1971

1991

1991

1993? (c)

2

1994?

?

1974?

1994

1992

?

1993

1994

1992

?

1995

3

40%

22%

16%

41%

48%

61%

56%

28%

26%

48%

29%

4

  

40%

49%

67%

  

51%

64% (b)

60%

59%

  

78%

5

  

1%

1%

7%

    

9% (b)

4%

5%

  

6%

6

  

2%

2%

        

1%

      

7

  

55%

74%

        

41 %

      

1 Year of the last agrarian-census
2 Year of the last agrarian-/land law
3 Percentage of the population in rural areas from the total population, 1995
4 Percentage of agrarian-farms under 5 ha from the total number of agrarian-farms (a)
5 Percentage of area of agrarian-farms under 5 ha from the total agrarian-farm area (a)
6 Percentage of agrarian-farms over 500 ha from the total agrarian-farms (a)
7 Percentage of area of agrarian-farms over 500 ha from the total agrarian-farm area (a)

Remarks
a) Statistics for 4-7 from CEPAL-data, approximately 1995
b) under 3.5 ha
c) only in the Departamentos Ica, Lambayeque and Ucayali

Sources: documents from CEPAL and CELADE (1995)