Land Reform

Articles, communiques and actions related to land reform policy and movements.

Confrontation in Bolivia over Agrarian Reform
Roger Burbach, CENSA
December 18, 2006 - The government of Evo Morales and the indigenous social movements of Bolivia have won an historic victory with the passage of an agrarian reform law that calls for the 'expropriation of lands' that 'do not serve a just social-economic function.' According to Miguel Urisote, the director of the Land Foundation, an independent research center in La Paz, 'this is a blow to the latifundios, the large estates where many Indians often work in slave-like conditions.'

PHILIPPINES: Farm leader wounded in shooting in front of his family
Urgent Appeals Programme: Asian Human Rights Commission
December 18, 2006 - Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) writes to inform you that a leader of a group of farmers seeking land reform was wounded in a shooting at 6pm on 30 October 2006. The attack on Ronald Ocson (41), president of the Asao Farmers and Residents Association (AFRA), took place almost three weeks after he and his fellow villagers were also violently allegedly attacked by armed goons of an influential landlord in Barangay (village) Lawis, Balasan, Iloilo.

AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE CONTEXT OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY, THE RIGHT TO FOOD AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY: LAND, TERRITORY AND DIGNITY
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AGRARIAN REFORM AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
April 19, 2006 - In this paper, which provides a civil society perspective on agrarian reform and rural development, we develop the concept of food sovereignty as an overarching framework or paradigm. Food sovereignty essentially defines the policy package that would be needed so that policies of agrarian reform and rural development might truly reduce poverty, protect the environment, and enhance broad-based, inclusive economic development. The most fundamental pillars of food sovereignty include the recognition and enforcement of the right to food and the right to land; the right of each nation or people to define their own agricultural and food policies, respecting the right of indigenous peoples to their territories, the rights of traditional fisherfolk to fishing areas, etc.; a retreat from free trade policies, with a concurrent greater prioritization of production of food for local and national markets, and an end to dumping; genuine agrarian reform; and peasant-based sustainable, or agroecological, agricultural practices.

Redistributive land reform in ‘public’ (forest) lands? Lessons from the Philippines and their implications for land reform theory and practice
Saturnino M. Borras, Jr
March 30, 2006 - The conventional view in the land reform literature does not consider distribution of‘public’lands to landless and near-landless peasants as redistributive land reform. Questioning the (formal) private property bias in land reform theory and practice, this paper rethinks some fundamental concepts and re-examines actual distribution in public lands in the Philippines. Itconcludes that redistributive reform can, in fact, occur in this type of land and the political process through which this outcome can be achieved could be highly contentious.

Land, Empowerment and the Rural Poor: Challenges to Civil Society and Development Agencies
Saturnino M. Borras Jr., IFAD
March 30, 2006 - Three-fourths of the world’s 1.2 billion poor are rural poor. Lack of access to and control over land and water resources is largely the cause of their economic poverty, social exclusion, political subordination and cultural marginalization. Recent global campaigns to end poverty, however laudable, have tended to avoid the issue of democratizing access to and control over productive resources. When such campaigns have addressed the issue of access to resources, they have tended to avoid public policies that explicitly confront the structural and institutional causes of rural poverty. But if poverty is to be ended worldwide, anti-poverty campaigns have to focus on the rural world. If rural poverty is to be eradicated, democratizing access to and control over land and water resources must become central.

The Agrarian Counter-Reform of the World Bank
Marcelo Resende and Maria Luisa Mendonça
February 13, 2006 - The World Bank is celebrating 60 years. Meanwhile, social movements worldwide organize demonstrations against the impact of the policies and ideology of this institution.

The World Bank influences the development strategies and the economic policies of Southern countries by making them compromise their budgets with projects that benefit large corporations. Under the pretense of “economical assistance”, the World Bank programs have a great impact on the external debt because they establish a counterpart for the governments.

Agrarian Reform in the Context of Food Sovereignty, the Right to Food and Cultural Diversity: “Land, Territory and Dignity”
Peter Rosset, Sofia Monsalve, Saúl Vicente Vázquez, Jill K. Carino,, LRAN, La Via Campesina, , FIAN International, International Indian Treaty Council, Cordillera Women’s Education and Resource Center (CWERC), West African Network of Peasant and Agricultural Producers' Organizations (ROP
February 13, 2006 - In this paper, which provides a civil society perspective on agrarian reform and rural development, we develop the concept of food sovereignty as an overarching framework or paradigm. Food sovereignty essentially defines the policy package that would be needed so that policies of agrarian reform and rural development might truly reduce poverty, protect the environment, and enhance broad-based, inclusive economic development. The most fundamental pillars of food sovereignty include the recognition and enforcement of the right to food and the right to land; the right of each nation or people to define their own agricultural and food policies, respecting the right of indigenous peoples to their territories, the rights of traditional fisherfolk to fishing areas, etc.; a retreat from free trade policies, with a concurrent greater prioritization of production of food for local and national markets, and an end to dumping; genuine agrarian reform; and peasant-based sustainable, or agroecological, agricultural practices.

Broadening the Discourse of “Negotiated Land Reform”: A Comparison Between Land Reform Projects in South Africa and Brazil
Isabella Kenfield, ICARRD
February 13, 2006 - Mainstream agrarian reform policymakers construct discourse of “negotiated land reform” to describe market-led agrarian reform (MLAR). This discourse constrains the terms of negotiation over land reform to a purely market-oriented lexicon. MLAR proponents believe the purpose of land reform is to boost agricultural efficiency in order to promote economic equity. Through MLAR’s adherence to the willing-seller, willing-buyer principle, the terms of negotiation over the mechanism for land reform are limited to private land transactions. MLAR’s reference point of the market for its definition of “negotiation” relegates the tactics practiced by rural social movements such as the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (MST), in particular the occupation of unproductive land, as non-negotiated land reform. This paper will critique MLAR’s discourse of “negotiation” to highlight its limitations, and argues that the MST is creating and participating in a genuine negotiated agrarian reform. Through a comparison of research and experiences from agrarian reform projects in South Africa and Brazil, this paper will describe the negative impacts of MLAR’s limited scope of negotiation, and will highlight how the MST’s broadening of the terms of negotiation of agrarian reform, in relation to both purpose and mechanism, is resulting in successful land reform. This paper calls for an expanded margin of discourse of land reform negotiation in order to create successful agrarian reform policies, and social and economic justice for the rural poor.

Call to participate in the "Land, Territory and Dignity" Forum
ICCARD
February 13, 2006 - The Council of the FAO in its 128th session in June 2005 approved the proposal which called for an International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) to be held in 2006. This constitutes a critical element of the FAO program to fulfil commitments of the 1996 World Food Summit, the 2001 World Food Summit: five years later, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Millenniums Development Goals (MDG). The FAO Council welcomed the proposal of the Government of Brazil to host the Conference that will take place in Porto Alegre from 7 - 10 March, 2006. The "International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development - new challenges and options for revitalizing rural communities" (ICARRD), will be the 2nd international conference on this subject, following the World Conference held in 1979 (http://www.icarrd.org/).

Ancestral Land, Food Sovereignty and the Right to Self-Determination: Indigenous Peoples' Perspectives on Agrarian Reform
Jill K. Carino, Cordillera Women's Education and Resource Center (CWERC) - Philippines
January 31, 2006 - The Outline of this Paper:
1. Worldview of indigenous peoples on land, territory and resources
2. Internationlly Recognized Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Land
3. Agrarian Reform and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

- Collective land rights, individual and communal ownership
- Right to self-determination and free prior informed consent
- Respect for Indigenous knowledge systems

4. Globalization and indigenous peoples' alternatives

Why Do The Landless Remain Landless?
Susan Tilley, Surplus People Project (SPP)
November 10, 2005 - This is an examination of land acquisition and the extent to which the land market and land redistribution mechanisms serve the needs of land-seeking people in South Africa.

Venezuela’s Land Reform: Land for People not for Profit in Venezuela
Gregory Wilpert
September 20, 2005 - The Venezuelan government under President Hugo Chavez is the only government in Latin America, and perhaps even in the world, that is currently trying to pursue an ambitious land and agrarian reform program. The government has also introduced new agricultural policy principles, such as those of food sovereignty and the primacy of land use over land ownership. Because of this, despite the fact that Venezuela has a relatively small agricultural sector, land reform has become one of the Chavez government’s most controversial policy endeavors. Exactly why this land reform is so controversial, what it consists of, and what are its problems and prospects are some of the issues we will examine in the following pages.

FONTIERRAS: Structural Adjustment and access to land in Guatemala
Byron Garoz, Susana Gauster
September 20, 2005 - Agriculture is central to the Guatemalan economy and society, representing 23% of the Gross National Product in 1997, and with 61.4 % of the population living in rural areas in 2000. Agriculture in Guatemala is characterized by extremely unequal land distribution In 1998, according to the Ministry for Agriculture, Grains and Food (MAGA in Spanish ), 96% of producers cultivated 20% of the land mass and lived in subsistence conditions. At the same time 0.2% of producers possessed 70% of the land, with large areas of land used for production of agricultural exports. After more than thirty years of different government policies, the genocide of indigenous people and the peace accords of the 1990s, land access and distribution in Guatemala remains highly exclusionary.

Mexico: Impacts of demarcation and titling by PROCEDE on agrarian conflicts and land concentration
Ana de Ita, Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano (CECCAM); LRAN
September 20, 2005 - In many countries, the World Bank promotes so-called market-based agrarian reform—the neoliberal avenue for granting peasants access to land. In the case of Mexico, where a profound agrarian reform followed the revolution of 1910, and where half of the country’s surface area is the property of ejidos and communities—constituting the social sector—neoliberal planners, as of 1992, and under World Bank recommendations, drove a series of counter-reforms to the agrarian legislation established in Article 27 of the Constitution, with the objectives of making land tenancy more secure in terms of private property, and legally disentangle all land owned by the social sector to promote its placement in the market.

Surviving Crisis in Cuba: The Second Agrarian Reform and Sustainable Agriculture
Mavis Alvarez, , Martin Bourque, Fernando Funes, Lucy Martin. Armando Nova, and Peter Rosset
September 20, 2005 - When trade relations with the Soviet Bloc crumbled in late 1989 and 1990, and the US tightened the trade embargo, Cuba was plunged into economic crisis. In 1991 the government declared the “Special Period in Peacetime,” which basically put the country on a wartime economy-style austerity program. An immediate 53 percent reduction in oil imports not only affected fuel availability for the economy, but also reduced to zero the foreign exchange that Cuba had formerly obtained via the re-export of petroleum. Imports of wheat and other grains for human consumption dropped by more than 50 percent, while other foodstuffs declined even more. Cuban agriculture was faced with an initial drop of about 70 percent in the availability of fertilizers and pesticides, and more than 50 percent in fuel and other energy sources produced by petroleum.

Reforming Land Rights: The World Bank and the Globalization of Agriculture
Elizabeth Fortin, Institute of Development Studies, UK
September 20, 2005 - Since independence, landholdings in Southern Africa have remained highly skewed between the rich and poor, reflecting the land and agricultural policies adopted in colonial times and after independence. More recently, agricultural policies have been prescribed by the World Bank as conditionalities of multilateral loans which have both facilitated and also driven the growing integration of such countries in the world economy. This article argues that such integration is being played out on an increasingly unequal global playing field, structured by global agricultural commodity chains and international trade, and strengthened by those very policy prescriptions of the World Bank.

Violence in the Countryside and Land Reform
Maria Luisa Mendonça and Roberto Rainha
September 20, 2005 - This article analyzes violence in the countryside and land reform during 2003 and part of 2004. In 2003, the inauguration of the Lula government created great expectations. According to the Pastoral Commission on Land (CPT), “The year 2003 began with the euphoria of hope that can overcome fear. The rural workers believed that the time had come for a profound change, that Land Reform would finally happen.”

Dragging SA’s Land Debate from the Neoliberal Quicksand
Patrick Bond, ZNet
September 05, 2005 - There are a great many surface-level political processes now unfolding in South Africa, reflecting underlying contradictions that are irreconcilable.

Land For Those Who Work It: Can committing a crime be the only way to uphold the constitution?
Pauline Bartolone, Clamor Magazine
September 05, 2005 - "On the news they say, 'we invaded.' The word invade is theirs. The land is everybody's. So there's no such thing as invading land that is everybody's." Hilario is part of Brazil's landless workers movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra, MST) . The backbone of their movement is land occupation. Today, 47 percent of Brazil's land is owned by just 1 percent of the population, making the country's land distribution the second most unequal in the world. As a result, a class of four and a half million people are left on the verge of starvation, without land of their own.

The Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform and the Struggle for Gender Equality
Sofía Monsalve Suárez, FIAN International / LRAN
September 05, 2005 - One of the dangers in presenting analyses around gender and land is that it can too easily be compartmentalized, with the analysis plucked away from the patriarchal mainstream of land politics. Once they have been de-contextualized, free-floating ideas about ‘gender and land’ lend themselves to policy interventions that attempt to ‘mainstream’ them once again. Yet gender politics in debates around land are not supplementary analyses to be ‘mainstreamed’, nor ahistorical complaints about power, but actively constructed through existing institutional politics. In order to address this concern, this chapter begins with a short introduction to the institutional context and location of the gender politics that I address, specifically looking at Via Campesina and the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform, before moving to consider the gendered land politics that have been addressed through these forums.

Indigenous Peoples: An Essay on Land, Territory, Autonomy and Self-Determination
Rodolfo Stavenhagen
September 05, 2005 - While many analysts of land issues tend to treat land the way that farmers often see it — as a productive resource — indigenous peoples’ tend see land as part of something greater, called territory. Territory includes the productive function of land, but also encompasses the concepts of homeland, culture, religion, spiritual sites, ancestors, the natural environment, other resources like water, forests, below-ground minerals, etc. Agrarian reform directed at non-indigenous farmers in many cases may reasonably seek to redistribute “any and all” arable land to the landless, irrespective of where the landless come from. For example, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil demands and occupies land all over the country, and the members of their land reform settlements sometimes come from states far away from the land the occupy. In contrast, indigenous peoples’ movements do not demand just any land, but rather their land, and they want control over their land and territories. Thus, closely linked to the concept of territory, are the demands by organizations and movements of indigenous people for autonomy and self-determination. This essay lays out the key issues and controversies associated with these concepts.

The Underlying Assumptions, Theory, and Practice of Neoliberal Land Policies
Saturnino M. Borras Jr.
September 05, 2005 - In the early 1990s, neoliberal land policies emerged within, and became an important aspect of, mainstream thinking and development policy agendas. These policies have increased in prevalence since their inception at the end of the Cold War. Neoliberal land policies emerge from a pro-market critique of conventional (generally state-directed) land policies. Using various experiences from different countries, it is argued here that the pro-market critique of conventional land reforms is theoretically flawed and is unsupported by empirical evidence, and that initial outcomes of pro-market land policies show that they do not significantly reform pre-existing agrarian structures in favour of the rural poor.

Colombia: Agrarian Reform, Fake and Genuine
Héctor Mondragón, Economic Advisor to the National Campesino Council
September 05, 2005 - The World Bank and the Colombian government have, over the past thirty years, brought about a variety of initiatives under the guise of agrarian reform. In this chapter, we track the failures of the agrarian reform project, and show that these disappointments are yet more tragic than they first appear, given that genuine agrarian reform has the promise to address directly a range of ills that persist in Colombia today.

The right to food
Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the right to food, United Nations Organization
August 26, 2005 - The right to food is a human right that is protected by international law. It is the right to have regular, permanent and unobstructed access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and ensuring a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free from anxiety. Governments have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food.

Land for the People not for the Investor, The Government has to put forward the Public Interest
Federation of Indonesian Peasant Union (FSPI) - Executive Body of Federation (BPF), Federation of Indonesian Peasant Union (FSPI)
August 04, 2005 - The President Regulation No. 36/2005 was issued by the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on 3 May 2005. Although its consideration is based on the Main Law of Agrarian 1960, the President Regulation has substantially and philosophically been contrary to the Main Law of Agrarian 1960. It also neglects the people's rights for the land and even repressively and aggressively is just to fill some investors.

Landless Peasants March in Brazil, Build a new Road by Walking
Deborah James, Common Dreams News Center
July 20, 2005 - On May 17th, Brazilian news media reported that 50 people were injured as landless peasants clashed with police. Like our corporate media in the U.S., this focus overshadowed the real story; that 12,000 poor landless peasants had recently completed a Herculean 150 mile, 17 day-long march across the country to raise awareness about the crucial need for land reform in Brazil.

Interview with Peter Rosset of CECCAM and Land Research Action Network: Agrarian Reform, Land Reform, Food Sovereignty
Nic Paget-Clarke (In Motion Magazine) and Peter Rosset (LRAN, CECCAM), In Motion Magazine
July 20, 2005 - This interview for In Motion Magazine, April 15, 2005, was held in San Felipe, Yaracuy, Venezuela during a workshop on land reform held as part of a nationwide conference called “The 3rd International Gathering in Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution”. The Via Campesina delegation was doing a followup on an agreement (Chavez, Los Tapes y Las Semillas) that President Hugo Chavez signed at the MST settlement of Tapas in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil during the (2004) World Social Forum. This was a historic agreement between a government, the Chavez government, and a social movement, the Landless Social Movement, the MST, in Brazil, plus the Via Campesina, as the global alliance of peasant organizations, and a university and a state government in Brazil to create a Latin American School of Agroecology for peasant movements.

The Counter-Agrarian Reform of the World Bank
Marcelo Resende and Maria Luisa Mendonça, Social Network for Justice and Human Rights (Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos)
July 12, 2005 - From January 2003 to July 2004, Brazil received $3.2 billion in loans from the World Bank and from the Inter-American Development Bank. During this same period, Brazilian public institutions paid $6.9 billion to these banks. In other words, Brazil sent abroad $3.7 billion more than it received.

Can Redistributive Reform be Achieved via Market-Based Voluntary Land Transfer Schemes? Evidence and Lessons from the Philippines
Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Rural Development, Environment and Population Studies (RDEPS) Group of the Institute of Social Studies (ISS)
November 12, 2004 - This article examines market-led agrarian reform (MLAR) and its variants in the form of voluntary land transfer schemes under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in the Philippines. Analysis of MLAR variants in the Philippines offers a preview of what is likely to happen when the MLAR model currently being pushed by the World Bank is implemented in the real world: Not only do MLAR and MLAR-like schemes fail to promote redistributive reform, they also undermine potentially redistributive state-led land reform policies. Download the article in (PDF, 230kb) here.

Land Occupation in Bolivia
Econoticiasbolivia.com
September 02, 2004 - The occupation of Bolivian oil field marks the beginning of a new wave of protests, which developed in the rural areas of the country. Further actions are being carried out in the south of the country, and marches to La Paz are being prepared by landless farmers from different regions. The landless movements explained that the occupation of the oil field was a direct action against the government for the acquisition of the just entitlements [ titulación ] to their properties.

Land Tenure in the United States: Returning African-Americans to the Land
Spencer D. Wood & Jess Gilbert
July 23, 2004 - The authors provide a study of the land tenure pattern of Black farmers in the rual Southeastern U.S. Drawing from data on land tenure patterns in the South and in communities of color in particular, an aging population of black land owners emerges and suggests larger trends in U.S. agriculture towards a decline of African-Americans in the farming sector. A case study of the Mississippi Delta provides strong evidence of the need for policy to address unequal tenancy patterns and the continued role that policy can play in correcting for persistent inequality in the access to resources and land.

Philippine Agrarian Reform Gives Land to the Wealthy
Luz Rimban, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)
July 13, 2004 - This report focuses on the 220-hectare Hacienda Tinang in Tarlac, once owned by Benigno Aquino Sr. and sold to the wealthy de Leon family of Pampanga. It narrates how the de Leon heirs circumvented land reform by faking a voluntary offer of sale where the land was supposedly sold, in smaller parcels, to “farmer-beneficiaries.” These beneficiaries, however, were actually members of the clan, which includes some of the country’s wealthiest bankers, businesspeople, and socialites. The story is much more than that of the circumvention of the law or the loopholes in the land reform program. It is really a story of power and wealth in the country, and how the families that own land and wield power are able to protect their interests.

Land Reform Ridden with Loopholes
Luz Rimban, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)
July 13, 2004 - When she outlined a 10-point program of government in her inaugural speech on Wednesday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made no mention of land reform or rural poverty. No one has made note of the omission, itself a sign that 16 years after the signing of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, the issue of land redistribution is no longer considered a matter of urgent concern. . . . Learn more about how small farmers have been impacted by land reform in the Philippines

Post-apartheid Development, Landlessness and the Reproduction of Exclusion in South Africa
Stephen Greenberg, Center for Civil Society
July 10, 2004 - In this 43 page report on development and landlessness in post-apartheid South Africa, Greenberg explores the emergence of the Landless People's Movment (LPM) in response to the market assisted land reform emphasis of the World Bank and the South African state. Greenberg writes, "the LPM is perhaps unique amongst the independent grassroot movements in that its active membership is found in both urban and rural parts of the country." The report explores the ways that both historical and structural contradictions have shaped the response of grassroots movements in the struggle over the scope and direction of South African development . . . . .Read More

BOOK REVIEW To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil by Angus Wright & Wendy Wolford
Constantine Markides, THE NEW FARM
July 09, 2004 -

Colombia: Decades of War Over Land
Constanza Vieira, Inter Press Service (IPS)
July 07, 2004 - In many rural areas of Colombia, life is measured from war to war, the first of which broke out in 1948, the second in 1954, the third in 1962 and the fourth, which is still raging, in 1964. The war that began in May 1964 produced an army of peasant origin to defend themselves against the attacks of armed gangs created by the land-hungry elites with backing from the State. . . . Read More

Agrarian Reform: The Promise and The Reality
Marissa de Guzman, Marco Garrido & Mary Ann Manahan
June 23, 2004 - An updated and revised background report on land reform in the Philippines. The authors have provided a comprehensive critical analysis of the history and reality of agrarian reform in the Philippines. This 59 page paper is also featured as a chapter in, Anti-development State: Political Economy of Permanent Crisis by Walden Bello

Farmer is Face of Land Reform's Success at 16
Christine A. Gaylican, Inquirer News Service
June 23, 2004 - After sixteen years the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program ( better known as CARP ) has transformed thousands of tenant-farmers in the Philippines into small farmer-entrepreneurs. This article discusses the experiences of one farmer, Mang Pio, a direct beneficiary of the Asian Development Bank's training for farmers called the Agrarian Reform Communities Project (ARCP) which seeks to provide agrarian reform beneficiaries the right tools to manage their farm lands. . . . .Read More

Brazil : Agrarian Reform for Informal Lands
Mario Osava, Inter Press Service (IPS)
June 03, 2004 - Nearly a quarter of Brazilian territory (200 million hectares, equivalent to the area of Mexico) does not have known landowners because there is no legal register of titles. During the previous administration, of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the annual average number of families settled reached 80,000, while last year, under Lula's watch the total was 37,000. In addition to these formal efforts by the Brazilian government, peasant organizations have continued to push for more immediate land access in ways that have proven to be as successful. . . . . Read More

Scoping Study on Land Policy Research in Latin America
Stephen Baranyi, Carmen Diana Deere & Manuel Morales, Baranyi-The North-South Institute (NSI)-Canada
May 21, 2004 - After being relegated to the margins of development debates for over a decase, land policy has moved rapidly up the international agenda in recent years. In Latin America, a wave of market-oriented land policy reforms were adopted in the 1990s, from Mexico through Honduras and Nicaragua to Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. At the same time less visible yet important innovations were taking place on a number of fronts: joint titling to couples to promote gender equity; the regulariazation of indigenous peoples' titles to communal lands. . . . . Yet by the turn of the century frustrations with the uneven pace of change led certain social movmements and political parties to revive the banner of redistributive land reform. . . . Read More

A Voice Unheard: Frustration takes its toll
Pennapa Hongthong, The Nation
May 17, 2004 - Hai Khanjanta, 76, cannot estimate how many nights she has spent camping in front of Government House in Bangkok over the past 27 years, demanding compensation for the paddy fields she lost when waters from a government-built dyke flooded her family's land. The Thai government seized her land for the public[interest], but won't allow Khanjanta to stay on public space to seek compensation. . . . . Read More

Peasants of the World Need. . . .
Via Campesina
April 29, 2004 - Via Campesina is pressuring the United Nations Human Rights Commission to reconginze the rights and needs of peasants around the world. This list of 5 demands was presented at the 60th session meeting. We, the peasants are the producers of food that feed the peoples . . . .Read More

Land: Merchandise or Human Right?
April 27, 2004 - Across the world today, land is being transformed from being the base of communities’ life into a commodity. The European Union in embarking on a process of drafting common land policy guidelines for development cooperation. The development of a distinctive “European approach” to land reform issues offers good chances to contribute to the realisation of the human rights of rural populations and to guarantee the food sovereignty of all peoples. This formal statement is drafted jointly by small farmer and peasant organizations as an endorsement of European Union land policies.

Tides Shift on Agrarian Reform: New Movements Show the Way
Peter Rosset, Co-Director, Food First
April 15, 2004 - Peasant organizations around the world have been pushing for land reform on their terms in new ways. In early 2000 the landless members of the Honduran Peasant Movement of Aguán decided to take matters into their own hands. Some 900 families occupied a 5000 hectare site of state owned land in Colón. The land was the former base of the Regional Center for Military Training (CREM) during the 1980's where the U.S. trained the contra forces against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Farm Dwellers- Citizens without Rights: The Unfinished National Question
Andile Mngxitama
March 30, 2004 - A paper presented at the Land Reform and Poverty Alleviation in Southern Africa Conference, 4-5 June 2001, held by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria, South Africa.

International Day of Farmers' Struggle 17 April
Via Campesina
February 26, 2004 - During the Ministerial Conference in Cancun, peasants, indigenous, youth and other sectors of civil society organized against neo-liberal policies and the WTO. Together these groups were able to stop the WTO through strong actions in Cancun and other parts of the world. Through mobilization and organizing these groups convinced some governments to resist neo-liberal policies and to stop destructive international negotiations that provoke disintegration, increase poverty and bring misery to rural areas. During the World Social Forum and the International Peasant Forum held in Mumbai, India, in January of this year strategies and plans of action were drafted with social movements in resistence and struggle against neo-liberal policies. The International Day of Peasant Struggle is an important part of this common agenda, and we call everybody, worldwide, to action on this day.

Access To Land: Land Reform and Security of Tenure
Peter Rosset, Co-Director
February 17, 2004 - Access to land and security of tenure are critical elements in alleviating rural poverty and moving toward a world where food security and the absence of hunger are a reality for all. At the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, the governments of the world agreed upon a declaration to reduce hunger by one half in the year 2015. This paper reviews the original commitments made in 1996, and the overall lack of progress by governments in meeting them.

The Politics of Land Reform in Southern Africa
Edward Lehoff, Institute of Development Studies
January 27, 2004 - Across Southern Africa the legacy of settler colonialism lives on in a dualistic agricultural system that has been perpetuated first by deliberate state policies and, more recently, by the forces of free market capitalism. Small-scale farming, which provides a precarious living to million of poor rural households, remains severely neglected by policy makers in the region. Recent seizures of commercial farms and other land in Zimbabwe and increasing militancy among land activists in the region, suggests that a radical demand for land remains strong among much of the rural population. This paper explores the dynamics of land reform and land policy in Southern Africa with special consideration of the radical struggles for access to land and resources.

Monitoring Paper Part I: Land Occupation in South Africa
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, National Land Committee (NLC)
November 20, 2003 - This paper discusses the state of land occupation, its social origins, composition and dynamics in South Africa. The focus is on the social, political and geographical issues that have influenced land occupation during the 2Oth Century while paying special attention to patterns of gender, political alliance and NGO linkage. Finally, the authors consider the varying impact of economic class and the material conditions that landless South Africans continue to face in the continuing struggle for land.

Monitoring Paper Part II- Land Occupation in South Africa
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, National Land Committee (NLC)
November 20, 2003 - Part II of this paper concludes with a final evaluation of South African social, political and challenges of geography that have influenced land occupation over the decades. In closing, the author identifies key issues and lessons for the future.

Backgrounder Part II-The World Bank and Land Reform in Brazil
Sérgio Sauer, National Forum on Agrarian Reform and Rural Justice
November 06, 2003 - The second of a three part report on the history and status of land reform in Brazil. In this section of the report Sérgio Sauer focuses on the role of the World Bank in shaping land reform policy at the national level and its emphasis on the establishment of land markets.

Backgrounder Part III-Learning to participate, the MST experience
Mônica Dias Martins, University of Ceará
November 06, 2003 - In the third and final part of this report on land reform in Brazil, Monica Martins explores the impact of World Bank land policies on peasants and the landless. Focusing on the struggles of the MST, Martins provides a brief history of political and economic forces that have mobilized the MST and continue to shape their stuggle for land.

Agrarian Change , Gender and Land Reform: A South African Case Study
Cherryl Walker, UNRISD
November 05, 2003 - A paper exploring the history of land reform in South Africa since its democratic transition in 1993/94 up until 2000. The report explores how parallel movements towards land reform and women's rights failed to create opportunities for realizing gender equity in the rural sector.

I'm a Landless Peasant, I've Got Land but it's in the Graveyard
Maurice Lemoine, Le Monde Diplomatique
October 23, 2003 - Venezuela's opposition particularly loathes the crucial agricultural reforms of President Hugo Chávez, which have begun to return parts of enormous,barely used land-holdings to poor landless peasants and to encourage them to grow their own food and build working communities.

The Crime of the Latifundio
Alai-Amlatina
October 02, 2003 - Historically the violence in the Brazilian countryside has been caused by the enormous concentration of land by the few. As a result, hundreds of rural workers have been murdered; the land monopoly generates poverty, unemployment, and the exclusion from political life while preserving the power of rural oligarchs.

Chavez Led Land Reform Enrages Large Landowners
Reed Lindsay, The Toronto Star
September 25, 2003 - In this oil-rich and largely urban nation, the ruling elite has long overlooked gaping inequalities in land ownership. In an attempt to rectify this inequity, President Chavez says, the government will distribute 2 million hectares of idle, state-owned land to as many as 100,000 families by the end of this year.

TAKE ACTION-Guatemalan Land Reform
Campaign for Agrarian Reform, La Via Campesina & FIAN
September 25, 2003 - Indigenous land has been taken by force from families in the northern regions of Guatemala. Land must be redisributed to nearly 830 landless indigenous families in Guatemala if justice is to be restored in the countryside.

New Land Policies of Sri Lanka
Sarath Fernando, Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR)
August 25, 2003 - The Government of Sri Lanka is preparing to introduce a new land policy bill. This bill is based on the agreement in the "Regaining Sri Lanka" proposals, as well as an agreement with the World Bank. Government intends to approve this legislation very soon, however, this new law would be very destructive. The following is a brief analysis.

Urgent Appeal for Support for Landless Tenants Movement
People's Rights Movement (PRM)
August 07, 2003 - Anjuman Mazarain Punjab's (AMP) historic struggle has stunned the Pakistani state into virtual paralysis. After over 2 months of sustained state repression on Okara military farm, paramilitary Rangers forces have been forced to remove the majority of barricades and road blocks leading to and from the 19 villages in the area. This retreat is a tribute to the ongoing resistance of the more than 100,000 residents of the area, and the almost one million people across the province struggling for ownership rights of 68,000 acres of state land under the banner of AMP.

Crisis in South Africa Land Reform Movement
Landless People's Movement
July 18, 2003 - The Landless People's Movement (LPM) rejects and condemns the decision of the National Land Committees(NLC) Board to dismiss NLC Director Zakes Hlatshwayo, and demands that the Board immediately withdraws this decision and restores Hlatshwayo to his rightful place as the head of the NGO network that has previously supported our movement.

Communique on the Current Revision of the World Bank's Land Policies
Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform
April 15, 2003 - To pay tribute to 19 landless rural workers who were killed by the Military Police on April 17th 1996 in Eldorado dos Carajás/Brazil, La Via Campesina declared this day International Day of Peasant Struggles. As part of the world wide activities for this day, the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform makes public its statement on the land policy review process that the World Bank is currently conducting.

The Right of Peasants to Produce Food is in Danger
Via Campesina
April 09, 2003 - Millions of peasants have been evicted from their farming land. The development of huge plantations for cash crops aimed at exportation and industries, and the rapid increase of other land use forms such as the construction of hotels, golf courses and supermarkets haven taken away the land from the peasant often in the name of national development.

Two Models of Land Reform and Development
Jeffrey Frank, Z Magazine
November 27, 2002 - Guided by the slogan "Occupy, Resist and Produce," the MST initiated a direct action model of land reform
wherein landless peasants occupy an unproductive parcel
of land, petition the Brazilian government for land
rights, and operate the settlement as a collective
enterprise.