Apparently, different models and approaches on land distribution and land management have been introduced in various developing countries. I am trying to think of some of these methods that work in developing countries and perhaps with some details as to why these succeded, or even failed to do so?
Dear Sudarshan,
Very impressive question. Thanks a lot. I will tell you a story.
In many countries the power of the land ownership is still in the hands of landlords.
In the 20th century many developing countries tried to pose some policies for land reforms to make it more fair. By this way, poor people started to own their land and do their own farming. But there was a bid problem, of course, the former land lords were not happy with this situation and the illiterate poor peasants never appreciate the gift given by the government. Peasant didn't show much afford to keep their lands since they didn't fight for it but former land lords kept struggling to regain the privilege of owning the land including the peasant on it. In short time illiterate peasants gradually sold their shares to lords for very small prices since they don't know how to farm, produce and sell their outputs and they missed their ex-shepherds. At the end of the story, landlords collected the land shares again and the region went back to its original order. Land lords kept herding those people on their lands and exploit the benefits of this order. This order then has been seen very useful by the central government in terms of collecting votes since it was very easy and cheaper to gather all the votes from one particular region by conniving a landlord. If you find "the leverage points" which could have made this unsuccessful land reform story a successful one, you may go somewhere.
Of course there may be some different cases on this subject. But leverage point should be expected in some generic points for almost all.
Good luck!
Dear Ufuk,
Many thanks for your response. I appreciate your thoughts and enjoyed reading your powerful illustration as to how and why land reform becomes unsuccessful. I can indeed relate it to many developing countries such as Nepal.
Should you have any interesting readings on this area, please do share.
Kind regards, Sudarshan
Many initiatives have been taken in the Southern parts of India by the Governments to distribute unused public lands to the poor people from tribal and rural areas. However, they are not supported with agricultural inputs. Being economically survived on daily wage earnings, these people unable to invest money to develop and cultivate the land. The local elites and rich, usually exploit this situation and get the control of the land by providing small amounts, and continue to use the poor as laborers. In such cases the title would continue to be in the name of the poor to avoid legal obstacles. Hence, the provision of land should be facilitated with the required inputs including the technology. Getting the poor farmers as a cooperative and enable them to go in for scalable farming may be an option.
I agree to your points. I can relate your case with the rural scenario from Nepal where the large farmers or as you pointed local elites takes away the little benefit that are targeted to uplift rural farmers. It follows that access to and control over the productive land to the marginalized farmers become very scarce. In such situations, cooperative model might have some aids, however, there can be some challenges too.
Yes, even in coops the elites try to enter and control the things. Hence, proper training, grooming and hand holding for a year may be required to build the managerial capacities of the poor farmers. Precautions may be essential to bar the entry of elites in to these kind of coops.
To focus on the success or failure of land reforms, one needs to understand the influence of early institutional set up on the land tenure system. In India, even after the independence, we need to look back to the period under British rule. During the British rule three broad types of land revenue systems were introduced in India in order to collect revenue. The system that prevailed in the eastern part of India was landlord based system known as the zamindary system. The raiyatwari system or cultivator based system was established in southern India and the village based system or the mahalwari system was established in the north western India.
To come out of the clutches of such plights, most of the states in India enacted land reforms as per the constitutional right in the post independence period. Several legislations like tenancy reforms, ceiling on land holdings and land consolidation measures have been passed during early 1950s. Major focus of this reform was to transfer the property rights of land to the tillers or the sharecroppers by eradicating intermediaries between the government and the cultivators.
However, the degree of success in implementing land reforms have varied significantly from state to state even sometimes with a major portion of the agenda unfinished in most states. This difference in success can be attributed to the varied nature of land reform legislation, the level of political will and institutional support for land reforms. Some states, particularly the states where mahalwari land tenure system was prevailing, land reform were unsuccessful despite the broad policy guidelines.
If possible, you can have a look at the paper “Land Reforms, Change in Property Rights and Efficiency: A Special Reference to India”.
You can find it here: https://ideas.repec.org/zimm/students/landreforms.pdf
This paper empirically investigates the effects of change in land rights on the improvement in efficiency to answer the question regarding sustainablity in West Bengal agriculture.
Given the long history of the failure of land reforms, the starting point of the question should be, "is land reform feasible or possible?" In no countries land reform succeeded without strong government and extensive agrarian reforms. Giving away land to the landless is not necessary an economic solution or even a social solution. The landless may lack farming skills. In Zimbabwe, landless black farmers received land but they neither had capital nor skills to undertake tobacco farming, nor the knowledge of tobacco markets. In communist government led countries, land reforms generally succeeded because of government support. But nonethelss Cuban reforms resulted in overall stagnation when its sugar products lost external markets. So there is no single recipie for land or agrarian reforms. State is a key factor in this proces and so is history.
Land reforms designed to reduce rural poverty must be those that directly address issues associated with poverty in the rural areas:
(1) poorly-defined property rights--this is one of the most important constraints to economic development and poverty alleviation/eradication in the rural areas. Hence, it is important that land reforms to promote economic development address the issue of property rights so that individuals, especially historically marginalized peoples (e.g., women and religious and ethnic minorities), can have legal titles to their land and use them to access the credit that they need to engage in productive activities. Of course, there must be an enforcement mechanism to make certain that the rights of individuals are not violated by opportunistic state- and non-state actors.
(2) poor or non-existent access to credit: lack of access to credit hampers rural agriculture and prevents the people from creating the wealth that they need to meet their daily obligations. Hence, land reforms should be directed at making it easier for rural farmers to have more effective access to credit. Changing traditional practices that deny women ownership of land is key. Also, eliminating practices that deny women the ability to inherit land should also be addressed. Also consider various ethnic and religious minorities (cf. Dalits in India).
(3) farm-to-market roads: a land reform program is not likely to benefit the rural area significantly if farmers find it very difficult to take their produce to markets in the urban areas. Hence, the construction of roads that link the rural areas to urban centers is critical.
(4) adequate communication infrastructure: The rural areas, in many countries, are often cut off from the urban industrial sectors. Along with land reform, the government must provide communication infrastructure (e.g., infrastructure for Internet services; other types of phone service; etc.) in order to help the rural areas stay linked/connected to the urban industrial centers.
(5) education, health, and other facilities that enhance productivity: along with land reforms, the government must provide necessary social overhead capital in the rural areas in order to enhance farm productivity.
(5) fully functioning rural markets: Without fully functioning markets, farmers cannot specialize, and without specialization, farmers remain relatively unproductive and are unable to exit from the "hand-to-mouth' type of production systems. Hence, together with land reform, the government should consider the "coordination problem."
Thank you friends for your input and suggestions. This discussion shows the beauty of having different insights on such complex issue as Land reform, as most of you highlight in your response. I am grateful to you all!