Land Reform

Colonial Antecedents

The challenges and struggles associated with land reform have extensive historical roots in the colonial period. For the rural poor in developing countries, two of the most debilitating legacies of European colonialism were the establishment of uneven landscapes and commodity export–dependent economies, which went, and continue to go, hand in hand. In a broad sense, colonialism both magnified and hardened the inequalities where they already existed (in tributary or feudal societies) or established highly unequal distributions of land, for instance, as extensive export-oriented plantations took over the best agricultural land and as more successful small- and medium-scale farmers expanded within the increasingly competitive economic systems.

Most of the wealth generated by export commodities such as sugar, coffee, tea, palm oil, cocoa, cotton, and tobacco flowed back to Europe or was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of large farmers and merchants. At the same time, import dependence on a diverse range of manufactured goods and services became deeply entrenched. This position within international trading networks has proven to be extremely durable for the world's poorest nations, whose export structures are still predominantly based on a small number of mostly low-value commodities with often highly volatile prices in world markets.

Land Inequality

Land inequality is closely associated with poverty and hunger in many places. Land inequality also has a marked gendered character. On a global scale, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, women make up 51% of the total agricultural labor force, with especially high levels in the world's poorest countries, but almost everywhere, women's rates of land ownership pale in comparison with their contribution to agricultural production. Geographically, land inequalities are especially marked throughout most of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa, as well as large parts of South Asia and East Africa. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the world's most inequitable region according to a recent United Nations report, 75% of the total agricultural population has access to only 10% of all arable land. At the extreme end of the spectrum, in nations such as Brazil, Guatemala, and Jamaica, a very small percentage of all landholders control more than half of all arable land—an inequality that is magnified by differences in land quality.

In short, the widespread persistence of land inequalities is one starting point for contextualizing challenges and debates associated with land reform. Another key starting point, related somewhat conversely, is the explosiveness of land inequalities in igniting social struggle. In the first half of the 20th century, land inequalities played a central role in inciting major revolutionary struggles in Mexico, Russia, and China, with different processes of land reform ensuing in each case. The land reform following the Chinese Revolution has been described as the largest appropriation and redistribution of property in world history, taking land away from a powerful nobility and transforming it into village collectives.

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