GTZ - Land Tenure in Development Cooperation: Chapter 3.7.1

Guiding Principles: Land Tenure in Development Cooperation
Orientierungsrahmen: Bodenrecht und Bodenordnung		Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit Abt. 45 / Div. 45

3.7.1 Attempts at Agrarian Reform

Land reforms were implemented in many Asian countries immediately after independence. Land reforms with a strong redistributional effect in East Asia (Korea, Taiwan and Japan) were successful. The reforms triggered high production and income growth. They are the corner-stones of the current "East Asian Miracle." The success, however, is often coupled now with massive environmental problems.

In South Asia (India and Pakistan) land reforms only showed limited success. The main reasons were that the government only weakly enforced the reforms, and that powerful large landowners developed successful opposing and avoidance strategies. Measures for improving the tenancy situation have weakened the traditional landlord-tenant relationship, however, they have not been replaced by new, more efficient institutions responsible for land allocation and use. The land reform measures in South-East Asia were also weakened and postponed due to a strong and powerful opposition.

Land reform in Asia

FAO: Earth Summit + 5 Progress on the road from Rio Land tenure reforms can have a very positive impact on land management. China and Vietnam, as well as several countries in transition, have begun allocating land to individuals and families. In several cases, production increases have been spectacular, and for the first time in a millennium, more trees are being planted than cut down. Progress Report FAO, June 1997 http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/EPdirect/EPre0029.htm

Although not particularly an agrarian reform in the narrow sense, the so-called "green revolution" has had a distinctive influence on the agrarian structure. This introduction of wheat and rice species with a genetically high yield potential together with complementary inputs led to large increases in agricultural production in the irrigated regions of South and Southeast Asia. Additionally, technological change was triggered by the "green revolution" that had extensive consequences for the agrarian structure and widened the gap between "poor" and "rich." A new stratum of progressive, well-educated farmers evolved. They produced intensively and market-orientated on their larger farms. Due to the fact that more and more landlords started cultivating their fields themselves, many of the former tenants were dismissed. Many of the smallholders also gave up farming and rented out their land, as they did not have any access to the new technologies at first.	"Green revolution"
In some African countries land and agrarian reform debates are presently key issues in political discussions. In southern Africa the form and extent of redistribution of land from large farms owned by former settlers must be clarified and the hunger for land of thousands must be satisfied with the transfer of power to the black majority. In Mozambique, the mismanaged large landholdings with degraded land not only have to be privatized, but land must also be distributed as equally as possible amongst war refugees. In addition, the claims for restitution of former Portuguese large landowners must be politically satisfied. In East Africa the most comprehensive market-oriented land reform was accomplished in Kenya at the end of the colonial era already. After four decades negative effects can also be seen, for example, the underestimation of problems involved in managing the land register, the neglect of women's rights and new conflicts between crop farmers and livestock keepers. In Tanzania, the extensive suggestions of the "Land Commission" for reformation of the "Ujamaa" agrarian reform have met with strong reservations by the government and administration that have delayed the process. In Francophone West Africa only Senegal has implemented an extensive (and controversial) land reform in the past that strengthened the village community's land allocation and policies. Recent approaches in Niger for the creation of a "Code Rural" have come to a halt since the last coup d'état. In general, the reforms of land ownership in Africa have had less impact than those in Asia and Latin America in the past, but will have high priority in the future, especially in the SADC region. The most extensive socialistic approaches were carried out in Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique. The experiences with a centrally planned economy and state property are well-known and usually depressing (poverty, hunger, forced resettlement and civil war).	Land reform in Africa
The situation in most Latin American countries continues to be characterized by juxtaposed latifundias and minifundias. The latifundistas who control wide areas of land are very powerful economically and politically. The smallholders, tenants and agricultural laborers often do not have access to land or they have been forced to marginal sites. The Catholic church has supported the minifundistas in their attempts to exercise their rights for a long time, thus promoting land reforms "from the bottom" (Justitia et Pax 1997). Agrarian reform was carried out in four countries of Latin America by the 1950’s: Mexico (1915), Bolivia (1952) and Guatemala (1953). Cuba is an exceptional case as it underwent its third land reform already in 1994 as a result of "privatization" of governmental farms. Its first was in 1959 in which large governmental farms and production cooperatives were formed. Since 1961, further agrarian reforms were enacted in Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. The reform measures in Chile were rescinded in part after the military coup in 1973. Agricultural land was newly structured through allocation of private property returned to its previous owners and the sale of government lands. All agrarian reforms in Latin America have been disappointing from the viewpoint of the "campesinos," since land was reclaimed by changing governments or juntas or watered down by bureaucratic measures, i.e. the creation of "valves" (agrarian colonization) and finally resulting in failure. In El Salvador, Nicaragua and Brazil the measures for agrarian reform were also implemented incompletely or inadequately. The Chiapas rebellion in Mexico since 1994 clearly illustrates the current land tenure dramas that are a result of attenuated land reforms in Latin America.	Land reform in Latin America
The first comprehensive agrarian reform law in the Near East was enacted in 1952 in Egypt by Gemal Abdel Nasser. After Syria's "unification" with Egypt and the new administration in Iraq which came into power through the revolution in 1958, both countries implemented land reforms with Egypt as their model. In the following years Iran (1962), North Yemen (1962) and Afghanistan (1975) enacted land reforms. While the expropriated landowners in these countries (with the exception of North Yemen) received compensation for their loss of property, its value, however, declined quickly from year to year due to inflation. In the North African countries (Tunisia 1956/57, Algeria 1962, Morocco 1962/66 and Libya 1970) land reforms were carried out in which the land owned by foreigners was expropriated without compensation and redistributed.	Land reforms in the Near East and the Maghreb countries

Table 3: Changes in the size distribution of land ownership in Egypt, 1951 - 84

Size of ownerships (feddans)	1951		1965		1984
	% O	% A	% O	% A	% O	% A
Less than 5	94.3	35.4	95.0	57.1	95,2	53.0
5-10	2.8	8.8	2.5	9.5	2.5	10.4
10-20	1.7	10.7	1.3	8.2	1.3	10.9
20-50	0.8	10.9	0.9	12,6	0.7	11.9
50-100	0.2	7.2	0.2	6,1	0,2	.7,5
100 and over	0.2	27.0	0.1	6,5	0.1	6.3

Gini Coefficient (landownership)	0.611		0.383		0.432
Gini Coefficient (landholdings)	0.715 (1950)				0.456 (1975)
Note: %O: Number of ownerships, percentage %A: Area of ownership units, percentage One feddan equals 1.04 acre, or 0.42 hectares. (El-Ghonemy 1990)

The political and economic fall of centrally controlled economies having rigid plan guidelines, state land ownership and forced collectives for agricultural production was not only limited to the successor countries of the Soviet Union (cf. 3.9.3). In these transforming economies the measures for divestiture of agriculture are still the focal point of the discussion. The complexity of land tenure issues are often too much for the legislature and the institutions responsible for implementation to handle. Divestiture is especially difficult since a market for secure property rights must be established. Privatization of state farms often opens up possibilities for private "land thieves" and for the state to make money, so privatization does not necessarily mean that transparency, equal distribution and/or high productivity are the results (cf. 3.9). If the privatization process extensively destroys farms, then the result may be "pulverization" of the farming structure. For example, very small farming units were created in Albania and Rumania that hardly appear able to survive. Correspondingly, attempts to consolidate the land and enlarge farm size exist.	Land reforms in the former socialist countries
Since the 1980’s, socialist countries in Asia (China, Laos and Vietnam) have also begun reforming their agrarian policies and legal and regulatory frameworks. They promote the temporary transfer of land (long-term user rights) and family farms. In 1994, a market for land use rights was begun in China. Eritrea on the other hand strengthens again the role of the government in control over land.	Recent land reforms in socialist countries

Land proclamation in Eritrea "In 1994, the newly independent nation of Eritrea enacted proclamation No. 58/1994, known as the Land Proclamation, a major piece of legislation concerning land tenure and administration. The Land Proclamation represents a fundamental redesign of land tenure in the country. Based in part on the perception that existing customary systems are impeding progress in the agricultural sector, the Proclamation vests ownership of all land in the government, and provides for the issuance of usufructuary rights or leaseholds over land to individuals. The state, in short, rather than the clan or the village, is now the source of all land rights. (Lindsay & Gebremedhin 1997)