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3.7 Agrarian Reforms: An Unanswered Challenge
The term
"land reform" describes measures for revising the
distribution of property in land. The term "agrarian reform" can be defined as a
bundle of measures for overcoming the obstacles to economic and social development that
are based on shortcomings in the agrarian structure.
Agrarian reform includes both the conditions for land tenure (like ownership, lease,
etc.), known as reform of land ownership, and those aspects of land use (like farm size, supporting institutions, etc.) called land management reform (Kuhnen 1982).
Many goals are intended to be reached simultaneously through
agrarian reform. In the past, great expectations were anticipated, however "a
frequent problem is that as one goal is attained others escape the policy makers' grasp.
For example, to assure that marketable production remains high, transitional or
"rich" peasants may be selected as land recipients. While this helps to keep
farm production at an acceptable level, lower-income peasants do not benefit and the goals
of equity and justice are shortchanged." (Thiesenhusen
1996:20). (For further in-depth analysis on agrarian reforms, see as well Binswanger et al. 1995 and the literature quoted
there.) |
Definition:
agrarian reform |
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| List of agrarian reform goals 1. Political goals
Adjust village social and power structures
Eliminate the feudalistic structure and large landholdings
Satisfy smallholders, leaseholders and farm laborers
Democratize the society
Protect the society from revolutions
Redistribute existing land
Reduce the inequality of landholdings
Partition of large farms
Protect the leaseholders, reduce the rent limit or eliminate the
lease and replace with ownership
2. Agrarian policy goals
Promote family-based farming
Reorganize the farm size structure
Create cooperative large farms
3. Economic goals
Intensify agricultural production, mobilize the agricultural
production potential, colonize new land
Improve the factor and market contribution of agriculture
Diversify production
Create additional employment opportunities
4. Social goals
(Bergmann 1980; Kuhnen
1982) |
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The extent of an agrarian reform
depends upon the intensity of the planned measures, especially the determination of the
maximum ceiling for the amount of landed property allowed. This
can vary from country to country depending upon the political ideas of the reformer, but
also on the land capability and farming system. The maximum size, for example, in South
Korea was three hectares, in the Philippines seven hectares and in Egypt after the
agrarian reform law of 1952 it was even 126 ha (reduced to 42 ha in 1961) and in Cuba 402
ha in 1959 (reduced to 63 ha in 1963). The number of people and the amount of land that
have to expropriated and the number of those receiving expropriated land is based upon the
maximum ceiling. |
Opportunities
and limitations of agrarian reform |
When one considers the fact that
the large group of medium-sized landholders are not affected by the reforms, it is not
surprising that even in the case of drastic agrarian reforms such as in Iran, Syria, Sri
Lanka and Egypt only 10% to 25% of the land was redistributed, and only 10% to 22% of the
agricultural households received land as a result of the reform. More radical agrarian
reforms such as in South Korea and Iraq that effected a redistribution of 65% and 60%,
respectively, of land and in which 77% and 56%, respectively, of the households received
agricultural land are an exception.
The magnitude of these ranges should be considered when land
reforms are evaluated, especially with respect to its effect on production. The
psychological effect of agrarian reform is a fundamental contribution to rural
development. The reforms show the lower strata that the influence of the once powerful
landowners can be weakened, while their social status is in fact improved.
The following Lorenz curves show
examples of the relative equality or inequality of the land distribution in four countries. (The higher the Gini coefficient, the more unequal the land distribution and the stronger
the deviation from the diagonal which corresponds to equal distribution. The Gini
coefficient, therefore, corresponds to the quotient of the area between the diagonal and
the distribution curve and the total area underneath the diagonals. It can have a value
between zero and one). |
Extent of land
redistribution |
Overview 5: Distribution of holdings in selected countries
Gini Coefficient (Pakistan 1988): 0.67
Gini Coefficient (Argentina 1988): 0.83
Gini Coefficient (Thailand 1988): 0.42
Gini Coefficient (Germany 1993): 0.65
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