Land reforms by country

Agrarian reform and land reform have been a recurring theme of enormous consequence in world history. The goal of this page is to compare and contrast the different land reforms that were done (or attempted) around the world.

Latin America

Brazil

Getúlio Vargas, who rose to presidency in Brazil following the Brazilian Revolution of 1930, promised a land reform but reneged on his promise.

A first attempt to make a national scale reform was set up in the government of José Sarney (1985–1990), as a result of the strong popular movement that had contributed to the fall of the military government. According to the 1988 Constitution of Brazil, the government is required to "expropriate for the purpose of agrarian reform, rural property that is not performing its social function" (Article 184). However, the "social function" mentioned there is not well defined, and hence the so-called First Land Reform National Plan never was put into force.

Throughout the 1990s, the Landless Workers' Movement has led a strong campaign on favor of fulfilling the constitutional requirement to land reform. They also took direct action by forceful occupation of unused lands. Their campaign has managed to get some advances for the past 10 years, during the Fernando Cardoso and Lula da Silva administrations.

It is overseen by the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform.

Bolivia

Land in Bolivia was unequally distributed — 92% of the cultivable land was held by large estates - until the Bolivian national revolution of 1952. Then, the MNR government abolished forced peasantry labor and established a program of expropriation and distribution of the rural property of the traditional landlords to the Indian peasants. A unique feature of the reform in Bolivia was the organization of peasants into syndicates. Peasants were not only granted land but their militias also were given large supplies of arms. The peasants remained a powerful political force in Bolivia during all subsequent governments. By 1970, 45% of peasant families had received title to land. Land reform projects continued in the 1970s and 1980s. A 1996 Agrarian Reform Law increased protection for smallholdings and indigenous territories, but also protected absentee landholders who pay taxes from expropriation. Reforms were continued at 2006, with the Bolivian Senate passing a bill authorizing the government redistribution of land among the nation's mostly indigenous poor.

Chile

Attempts at land reform began under the government of Jorge Alessandri in 1960, were accelerated during the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–1970), and reached its climax during the 1970-1973 presidency of Salvador Allende. Farms of more than 198 acres (80 hectares) were expropriated. After the 1973 coup the process was halted, and up to a point reversed by the market forces.

Colombia

Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934–1938) passed the Law 200 of 1936, which allowed for the expropriation of private properties, in order to promote "social interest".

Later attempts declined, until the National Front presidencies of Alberto Lleras Camargo (1958–1962) and Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966–1970), which respectively created the Colombian Institute for Agrarian Reform (INCORA) and further developed land entitlement. In 1968 and 1969 alone, the INCORA issued more than 60,000 land titles to farmers and workers.

Despite this, Matsetela (2000) stated that the process was then halted and the situation began to reverse itself, as the subsequent violent actions of drug lords, paramilitaries, guerrillas and opportunistic large landowners severely contributed to a renewed concentration of land and to the displacement of small landowners.

In the early 21st century, tentative government plans to use the land legally expropriated from drug lords and/or the properties given back by demobilized paramilitary groups have not caused much practical improvement yet.

Cuba

Land reform was among the chief planks of the revolutionary platform of 1959. Almost all large holdings were seized by the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA), which dealt with all areas of agricultural policy. A ceiling of 166 acres (67 hectares) was established, and tenants were given ownership rights, though these rights are constrained by government production quotas and a prohibition of real estate transactions.

Guatemala

Land reform occurred during the "Ten Years of Spring" (1944–1954) under the governments of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Arbenz, after a popular revolution forced out dictator Jorge Ubico. The largest part of the reform was the law officially called Decree 900, which redistributed all uncultivated land from landholdings that were larger than 673 acres (272 ha). If the estates were between 672 acres (272 ha) and 224 acres (91 ha) in size, uncultivated land was expropriated only if less than two-thirds of it was in use.^[1] The law benefited 500,000 people, or one-sixth of the Guatemalan Population. Historians have called one of the most successful land reforms in history. However, the United Fruit Company felt threatened by the law and lobbied the United States government, which was a factor in the US-backed coup that deposed the Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. The majority of the reform was rolled back by the US supported military dictatorship that followed.^[1]

Mexico

by the liberal government. One of the aims of the reform government was to develop the economy by returning to productive cultivation the underutilized lands of the Church and the municipal communities (Indian commons), which required the distribution of these lands to small owners. This was to be accomplished through the provisions of Ley Lerdo that prohibited ownership of land by the Church and the municipalities. The reform government also financed its war effort by seizing and selling church property and other large estates. After the war, the principles of the Ley Lerdo were perverted by President Porfirio Diaz, which caused land concentration and contributed to causing the Mexican Revolution in 1910. A certain degree of land reform was introduced, albeit unevenly, as part of the Mexican Revolution.

In 1934, president Lázaro Cárdenas passed the 1934 Agrarian Code and accelerated the pace of land reform. He helped redistribute 45,000,000 acres (180,000 km²) of land, 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km²) of which were expropriated from American owned agricultural property. This caused conflict between Mexico and the United States. Agrarian reform had come close to extinction in the early 1930s. The first few years of the Cárdenas' reform were marked by high food prices, falling wages, high inflation, and low agricultural yields. In 1935 land reform began sweeping across the country in the periphery and core of commercial agriculture. The Cárdenas alliance with peasant groups was awarded by the destruction of the hacienda system. Cárdenas distributed more land than all his revolutionary predecessors put together, a 400% increase. The land reform justified itself in terms of productivity; average agricultural production during the three-year period from 1939 to 1941 was higher than it had been at any time since the beginning of the revolution.

Starting with the government of Miguel Alemán (1946–52), land reform steps made in previous governments were rolled back. Alemán's government allowed capitalist entrepreneurs to rent peasant land. This created phenomenon known as neolatifundismo, where land owners build up large-scale private farms on the basis of controlling land which remains ejidal but is not sown by the peasants to whom it is assigned.

In 1970, President Luis Echeverría began his term by declaring land reform dead. In the face of peasant revolt, he was forced to backtrack, and embarked on the biggest land reform program since Cárdenas. Echeverría legalized take-overs of huge foreign-owned private farms, which were turned into new collective ejidos.

In 1988, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was elected. In December 1991, he amended Article 27 of the Constitution, making it legal to sell ejido land and allow peasants to put up their land as collateral for a loan.

Francisco Madero and Emiliano Zapata were strongly identified with land reform, as are the present-day (as of 2006) Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

Today, most Mexican peasants are landowners. However, their holdings are usually too small, and farmers must supplement their incomes by working for the remaining landlords, and/or traveling to the United States.

See also: México Indígena (2005-2008 project)

Nicaragua

During and after the Nicaraguan Revolution (1979), the Sandinista government officially announced their political platform which included land reform.

The last months of Sandinista rule were criticized for the Piñata Plan which distributed large tracts of land to prominent Sandinistas. After their loss in the 1990 elections, most of the Sandinista leaders held most of the private property and businesses that had been confiscated and nationalized by the FSLN government. This process became known as the "piñata" and was tolerated by the new Chamorro government.

Peru

Land reform in the 1950s largely eliminated a centuries-old system of debt peonage.

Further land reform occurred after the 1968 coup by left-wing colonel Juan Velasco Alvarado. The military dictatorship under General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–75) launched a large scale agrarian reform movement that attempted to redistribute land, hoping to break Peru's traditionally inequitable pattern of land holding and the hold of traditional oligarchy.^[2] The model used by Velasco to bring about change was the associative enterprise, in which former salaried rural workers and independent peasant families would become members of different kinds of cooperatives.^[3] About 22 million acres were redistributed, more land than in any reform program outside of Cuba. Unfortunately, productivity suffered as peasants with no management experience took control. The military government continued to spend huge amounts of money to transform Peru's agriculture to socialized ownership and management. These state expenditures are to blame for the enormous increase in Peru's external debt at the beginning of the 1970s.^[3] State bankruptcy was partly caused by the cheap credit the government extended to promote agrarian development, state subsidies, and administrative expenditures to carry out the agrarian reform during this period.^[3] The more radical effects of this reform were reversed by president Fernando Belaúnde Terry in the 1980s.

A third land reform occurred as part of a counterterrorism effort against the Shining Path during the Internal conflict in Peru roughly 1988–1995, led by Hernando de Soto and the Institute for Liberty and Democracy during the early years of the government of Alberto Fujimori, before the latter's auto-coup.

Venezuela

In 2001, Hugo Chávez's government enacted Plan Zamora to redistribute government and unused private land to campesinos in need.

The plan met with heavy opposition which lead to a coup attempt in 2002. When Pedro Carmona took over the presidency during that event, he reversed the land reform. However, the reversal was declared null when the coup failed and Chávez returned to power.

By the end of 2003, 60,000 families had received temporary title to a total of 55,000 km² of land under this plan.

Middle East and North Africa

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Land Code of 1858 (1274 in the Islamic Calendar)was the beginning of a systematic land reform programme started during the Tanzimat period by Sultan Abdülmecid I of the Ottoman Empire during the latter half of the 19th Century, with the overall aims of increasing state revenue generated from land and for the state to be able to have greater control over individual plots of land. This was followed by the 1873 land emancipation act.

Egypt

Initially, Egyptian land reform essentially abolished the political influence of major land owners. However, land reform only resulted in the redistribution of about 15% of Egypt's land under cultivation, and by the early 1980s, the effects of land reform in Egypt drew to a halt as the population of Egypt moved away from agriculture. The Egyptian land reform laws were greatly curtailed under Anwar Sadat and eventually abolished.

Iran

Significant land reform in Iran took place under the Shah as part of the socio-economic reforms of the White Revolution, begun in 1962, and agreed upon through a public referendum. At this time the Iranian economy was not performing well and there was political unrest. Essentially, the land reforms amounted to a huge redistribution of land to rural peasants who previously had no possibility of owning land as they were poorly paid labourers. The land reforms continued from 1962 until 1971 with three distinct phases of land distribution: private, government-owned and endowed land. These reforms resulted in the newly created peasant landowners owning six to seven million hectares, around 52-63% of Iran's agricultural land. According to Country-Data, even though there had been a considerable redistribution of land, the amount received by individual peasants was not enough to meet most families' basic needs, "About 75 percent of the peasant owners [however] had less than 7 hectares, an amount generally insufficient for anything but subsistence agriculture.".^[4] By 1979 a quarter of prime land was in disputed ownership and half of the productive land was in the hands of 200,000 absentee landlords^[4] The large land owners were able to retain the best land with the best access to fresh water and irrigation facilities. In contrast, not only were the new peasant land holdings too small to produce an income but the peasants also lacked both quality irrigation system and sustained government support to enable them to develop their land to make a reasonable living. Set against the economic boom from oil revenue it became apparent that the Land Reforms did not make life better for the rural population: according to Amid, "..only a small group of rural people experienced increasing improvements in their welfare and poverty remained the lot of the majority".^[5] Moghadam argues that the structural changes to Iran, including the land reforms, initiated by the White Revolution, contributed to the revolution in 1979 which overthrew the Shah and turned Iran into an Islamic republic.

Iraq

Under British Mandate, Iraq's land was moved from communal land owned by the tribe to tribal sheikhs that agreed to work with the British. Known as compradors, these families controlled much of Iraq's arable land until the end of British rule in 1958. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, more and more land began to be centered in the hands of just a couple families. By 1958 eight individual families owned almost 1 million acres. However, the British did attempt to instill some reforms to increase the productivity of the land in Iraq. In 1926 the Pump Law was introduced, essentially legislating that all newly irrigate land would be tax free for 4 years. This led to some short term gains in land productivity. If land was cultivated for 15 years, it then became your own property. From 1914 to 1943 there was an increase from 1 million to 4.25 million acres of land developed. Unfortunately, irrigation of the land was irresponsible, and many farmers didn't allow for drainage, which led to a buildup of salt and minerals in the land, killing its productivity.^[6]

In 1958 the rise of the Communist Party led to the seizing of much of the land by the Iraqi government. Landholdings were capped at 600 acres in arable areas and 1200 acres in areas that had rainfall. The concentrated landholdings by the state were then redistributed among the populace, in amounts of 20 acres in irrigated land, with 40 acres in land with rainfall.

In 1970, the Ba'th Party, led by Saddam Hussein began instituting a wide series of sweeping land reforms. The intent of the reforms was to remove control of land owned by the traditional rural elites and redistribute it to peasant families. Modeled after the 1958 land reforms, much of the state land was rented out, though often to people who originally owned the large swathes of land. The key to this new reform was the Agrarian Reform Law of 1970.Between 1970 and 1982, 264,400 farmers received grants of land. However, these reforms did not contribute to an improvement in the production of agricultural goods, leading the regime to increase its imports of food products.^[7]

Maghreb

As elsewhere in North Africa, lands formerly held by European farmers have been taken over. The nationalisation of agricultural land in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia led to the departure of the majority of Europeans.^[8]

Syria

Land reforms were first implemented in Syria during 1958. The Agricultural Relations Law laid down a redistribution of rights in landownership, tenancy and management.

The reforms were halted in 1961 due to a culmination of factors, including opposition from large landowners and severe crop failure during a drought between 1958 and 1961, whilst Syria was a member of the doomed United Arab Republic (UAR).

After the Ba'ath Party gained power in 1963 the reforms were resumed. The reforms were portrayed by the governing Ba'ath as politically motivated to benefit the rural property-less communities. According to Zaki al-Arsuzi, a co-founder of the Ba'ath Party, the reforms would "liberate 75 percent of the Syrian population and prepare them to be citizens qualified to participate in the building of the state".^[9]

It has been argued that the land reform represented work by the 'socialist government', however, by 1984 the private sector controlled 74 percent of Syria's arable land.^[10] This questions both Ba'ath claims of commitment to the redistribution of land to the majority of peasants as well as the state government being socialist (if it allowed the majority of land to be owned in the private sector how could it truly be socialist?). Hinnebusch argued that the reforms were a way of galvanising support from the large rural population: "they [Ba'ath Party members] used the implementation of agrarian reform to win over and organise peasants and curb traditional power in the countryside".^[11] To this extent the reforms succeeded and resulted with an increase in Ba'ath party membership. They also prevented political threat emerging from rural areas by bringing the rural population into the system as supporters.

Europe

See also: The Land Reform of 1919–1940: Lithuania and the Countries of East and Central Europe.

Albania

Albania has gone through three waves of land reform since the end of World War II: in 1946, the land in estates and large farms was expropriated by the communist government and redistributed among small peasants; in the 1950s, the land was reorganized into large-scale collective farms; and after 1991, the land was again redistributed among private smallholders.

Estonia

In October 1991, shortly after Estonia received its independence from the former Soviet Union, the Estonian parliament approved the 'Law on Land Reform'. This law regulated the transformation of land from state ownership to private owners. The main principles of this process were the restitution of property rights of land owners before the 1940 Soviet occupation, and the protection of the legal rights of the present users of land. The law envisaged that a rather wide circle of heirs of the former owner would be eligible to submit a claim for land. The law also fixed compensation for the full amount of land at June 1940 values.^[12]

Presently, a Land Value Tax is levied, which is used to fund local municipalities. It is a state level tax, however 100% of the revenue is used to fund Local Councils. The rate is set by the Local Council within the limits of 0.1-2.5%.^[13]

Finland

In the general reparcelling out of land, begun in 1757 when Finland was a part of Sweden, the medieval model of all fields consisting of numerous strips, each belonging to a farm, was replaced by a model of fields and forest areas each belonging to a single farm.^[14] In the further reparcellings, which started in 1848 when Finland was part of Russia, the idea of concentrating all the land in a farm to a single piece of real estate was reinforced. In these reparcelling processes, the land is redistributed in direct proportion to earlier prescription.^[15] Both the general reparcelling and the further reparcelling processes are still active in some parts of the country, and a new reparcelling can be initiated when the local need for such reparcelling arises.^[16] After the Finnish Civil War, when Finland had become independent, a series of land reforms followed. These included the compensated transfer of lease-holdings (torppa) to the leasers and prohibition of forestry companies to acquire land. After the Second World War, Karelians evacuated from areas ceded to Russia were given land in remaining Finnish areas, taken from public and private holdings with less than full compensation to the previous owners. Also the war veterans, and their widows benefited from these allotments. As a result of post-WWII land reform, 30,000 new farms were established, 33,000 small farms received more land and 67,000 families received either a plot for a single-family home or a homestead with some arable land.^[17]

Ireland

At the 19th century, most of the land in Ireland belonged to large landowners, most of them of English origin. Most of the Irish population were tenants, having few rights and forced to pay high rents. This situation was one of the main causes to the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852 and to the Land War of 1870s-1890s.

The governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland responded to the agitations in Ireland with a series of land acts, beginning with the First Irish Land Act 1870 (initiated by prime minister William Ewart Gladstone), followed by further five land acts overseen by a Land Commission, prior to independence in 1922, by which time over 90% of lands had transferred from landlords to their former tenant farmers on negotiated terms with funding provided by the UK government.

Russia and the Soviet Union

The Emancipation reform of 1861, effected during the reign of Alexander II of Russia, abolished serfdom throughout Russia. More than 23 million people received their liberty. Serfs were granted the full rights of free citizens, gaining the rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property and to own a business. The Manifesto prescribed that peasants would be able to buy the land from the landlords.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the vast majority of Russian peasants held their land in communal ownership within peasant communities called mirs, which acted as village governments and cooperatives. Arable land was divided in sections based on soil quality and distance from the village. Each household had the right to claim one or more strips from each section depending on the number of adults in the household. This communal system was abolished in 1906 by the capitalist-oriented Stolypin reforms. The reforms introduced the unconditional right of individual landownership. They encouraged peasants to buy their share of the community lands, leave the communities and settle in privately owned settlements called Khutors. By 1910 the share of private settlements among all rural households in the European part of Russia was estimated at 10.5%.

The Stolypin reforms and the majority of their benefits were reversed after the communist revolution of 1917. The Decree on Land, issued by Lenin at 1917, and the "Fundamental Law of Land Socialization" of 1918, decreed that private ownership of land is totally abolished - land may not be sold, purchased, leased, mortgaged, or otherwise alienated. All land, whether state, crown, monastery, church, factory, entailed, private, public, peasant, etc., shall be confiscated without compensation and become the property of the whole people, and pass into the use of all those who cultivate it. These decrees were superseded by the 1922 Land Code. After the universal agricultural collectivization, land codes of the Soviet republics lost their significance. See Agriculture in the Soviet Union.

After the collapse of the USSR, a new land code was enacted, allowing private land ownership. See Agriculture in Russia.

Britain

There have been many land reformers in Britain, but most actual land reform has taken place in Scotland rather than England and Wales. Advocates of land reform in Britain have included the 17th-century Diggers, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Jesse Collings. Currently the Labour Land Campaign^[18] promotes the case for a land value tax, one of the results of which would be some land reform. The Green Party of England and Wales^[19][20] and the Scottish Green Party support land value tax.

Britain: Scotland

The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 ends the historic legacy of feudal law and creates a framework for rural or croft communities right to buy land in their area.

The third part of the Act gives crofting communities the right to acquire and control the croft land where they live and work, even without requiring the consent of the landowner. This right decisively changes the balance of power between the crofting community and the landowner.

Sweden

In 1757, the general reparcelling out of land began. In this process, the medieval principle of dividing all the fields in a village into strips, each belonging to a farm, was changed into a principle of each farm consisting of a few relatively large areas of land. The land was redistributed in proportion to earlier possession of land, while uninhabited forests far from villages were socialized (see Agriculture in Sweden#History).

In the 20th century, Sweden, almost non-violently, arrived at regulating the length minimum of tenant farming contracts at 25 years.

Africa

Ethiopia

Historically, Ethiopia was divided into the northern highlands, which constituted the core of the old Christian kingdom, and the southern highlands, most of which were brought under imperial rule by conquest. In the northern regions, the major form of ownership was a type of communal system known as rist. According to this system, all descendants of an individual founder were entitled to a share, and individuals had the right to use a plot of family land. Rist was hereditary, inalienable, and inviolable. No user of any piece of land could sell his or her share outside the family or mortgage or bequeath his or her share as a gift, as the land belonged not to the individual but to the descent group. Most peasants in the northern highlands held at least some rist land. Absentee landlordism was rare, and landless tenants were estimated at only about 20% of holdings. On the contrary, in the southern provinces, few farmers owned the land on which they worked. After the conquest, officials divided southern land equally among the state, the church, and the indigenous population. Tenancy in the southern provinces ranged between 65% and 80% of the holdings, and tenant payments to landowners averaged as high as 50% of the produce. In the easternlowland periphery and the Great Rift Valley, most land were used for grazing. The pastoral social structure is based on a kinship system with strong interclan connections; grazing and water rights are regulated by custom.

Beginning in the 1950s, the government tried to modernize the agriculture by granting large tracts of traditional grazing lands to large corporations and converting them into large-scale commercial farms. In the north and south, peasant farmers lacked the means to improve production because of the fragmentation of holdings, a lack of credit, and the absence of modern facilities. Particularly in the south, the insecurity of tenure and high rents killed the peasants' incentive to improve production. Further, those attempts by the Imperial government to improve the peasant's title to their land were often met with suspicion. By the mid-1960s, many sectors of Ethiopian society favored land reform. University students led the land reform movement and campaigned against the government's reluctance to introduce land reform programs and the lack of commitment to integrated rural development.

In 1974, The socialist Derg government rose to power, and on March 4, 1975, the Derg announced its land reform program. The government nationalized rural land without compensation, abolished tenancy, forbade the hiring of wage labor on private farms, ordered all commercial farms to remain under state control, and granted each peasant family so-called "possessing rights" to a plot of land not to exceed ten hectares. The Ethiopian Church lost all its land. Although the Derg gained little respect during its rule, this reform resulted in a rare show of support for the junta.

Tenant farmers in southern Ethiopia welcomed the land reform, but in the northern highlands many people resisted land reform and perceived it as an attack on their rights to rist land. The lowland peripheries were only slightly affected by the reforms.

The land reform destroyed the feudal order; changed landowning patterns, particularly in the south, in favor of peasants and small landowners; and provided the opportunity for peasants to participate in local matters by permitting them to form associations.

Kenya

In the 1960s, president Jomo Kenyatta launched a peaceful land reform program based on "willing buyer-willing seller". It was funded by Britain, the former colonial power.

In 2006, president Mwai Kibaki said it will repossess all land owned by "absentee landlords" in the coastal strip and redistribute it to squatters.^[21]

Namibia

Namibia's colonial past had resulted in a situation where about 20% of the population (mostly white settlers) owned about 75 percent of all the land. ^[22]

In 1990, shortly after Namibia got its independence, its first president Sam Nujoma initiated a plan for land reform, in which land would be redistributed from whites to blacks. legislation passed in September 1994, with a compulsory, compensated approach.^[23] The land reform has been slow, mainly because Namibia's constitution only allows land to be bought from farmers willing to sell. Also, the price of land is very high in Namibia, which further complicates the matter.

By 2007, Some 12% of the total commercial farmland in the country was taken away from white farmers and given to black citizens.

South Africa

The Natives' Land Act of 1913 "prohibited the establishment of new farming operations, sharecropping or cash rentals by blacks outside of the reserves"^[24] where they were forced to live.

In 1991, after a long anti-apartheid struggle led by the African National Congress, State President F. W. de Klerk declared the repeal of several apartheid rules, particularly: the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas and the Natives' Land Act. A catch-all Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act was passed.^[25] These measures ensured no one could claim, or be deprived of, any land rights on the basis of race.

In 1994, shortly after the African National Congress came to power in South Africa, it initiated a land reform process focused on three areas: restitution, land tenure reform and land redistribution.^[24][26] Restitution, where the government compensates (monetary) individuals who had been forcefully removed, has been very unsuccessful and the policy has now shifted to redistribution.

Initially, land was bought from its owners (willing seller) by the government (willing buyer) and redistributed, in order to maintain public confidence in the land market.^[24] This system has proved to be very difficult to implement, because many owners do not actually see the land they are purchasing and are not involved in the important decisions made at the beginning of the purchase and negotiation.

In 2000 the South African Government decided to review and change the redistribution and tenure process to a more decentralized and area based planning process. The idea is to have local integrated development plans in 47 districts.^[27]

Zimbabwe

By 1979, when Zimbabwe gained independence, 46.5% of the country's arable land was owned by around 6,000 commercial farmers,^[28] and white farmers, who made up less than 1% of the population, owned 70% of the best farming land.^[29]

As part of the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, president Robert Mugabe initiated a "willing buyer, willing seller" plan, in which white land-owners were encouraged to sell their lands to the government, with partial funding from Britain.^[30] Around 71,000 families (perhaps 500,000 people) settled on 3.5 million hectares of former white-owned land under this programme, which was described by "The Economist" in 1989 as "perhaps the most successful aid programme in Africa".^[31]

The 1992 Land Acquisition Act was enacted to speed up the land reform process by removing the "willing seller, willing buyer" clause, limiting the size of farms and introducing a land tax (although the tax was never implemented.)^[32] The Act empowered the government to buy land compulsorily for redistribution, and a fair compensation was to be paid for land acquired. Landowners could challenge in court the price set by the acquiring authority. Opposition by landowners increased throughout the period of 1992 to 1997. In the 1990s, less than 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) were acquired, and fewer than 20,000 families were resettled. Much of the land acquired during what has become known as "phase one" of land reform was of poor quality, according to Human Rights Watch. Only 19 percent of the almost 3.5 million hectares (8.65 million acres) of resettled land was considered prime, or farmable.

In 1997, the new British government, led by Tony Blair, unilaterally stopped funding the "willing buyer, willing seller" land reform programme. Britain's ruling Labour Party felt no obligation to continue paying white farmers compensation.

In 2000, a referendum on constitutional amendments was held. The proposed amendments called for a "fast track" land reform and allowed the government to confiscate white-owned land for redistribution to black farmers without compensation. The motion failed with 55% of participants against the referendum.^[33] However, self-styled "war veterans", led by Chenjerai Hunzvi, began invading white-owned farms. Those who did not leave voluntarily were often tortured and sometimes killed.^[34] On 6 April 2000, Parliament pushed through an amendment, taken word for word from the draft constitution that was rejected by voters, allowing the seizure of white-owned farmlands without due reimbursement or payment.^[35] In this first wave of farm invasions, a total of 110,000 square kilometres of land had been seized.

Parliament, dominated by Zanu-PF, passed a constitutional amendment, signed into law on 12 September 2005, that nationalised farmland acquired through the "Fast Track" process and deprived original landowners of the right to challenge in court the government's decision to expropriate their land.^[36] The Supreme Court of Zimbabwe ruled against legal challenges to this amendment.^[37]

During the "fast track", many parcels of land came under the control of people close to the government, as is the case throughout Africa. The several forms of forcible change in management caused a severe drop in production and other economic disruptions.

North America

Canada

A land reform was carried out as part of Prince Edward Island's agreement to join the Canadian Confederation in 1873. Most of the land was owned by absentee landlords in England, and as part of the deal Canada was to buy all the land and give it to the farmers.

United States – South

Following the U.S. Civil War, many blacks and military officials considered land reform vital. The downfall of the Confederacy emancipated millions, but few former slaves had the means to exercise real autonomy. Land, even at depressed post-war prices, was difficult for African Americans to procure.^[38] At the same time, with southern wealth the result of centuries of forced labor, blacks nationwide called for property on the basis of just reparations.^[39] Politically, redistribution carried the support of Radical Republicans.^[40] But opposing any grants to blacks were southern Democrats, along with a White House committed to 'restoration'.^[41][42] Given national divisions, reform efforts were varied but short-lived.

Many African Americans believed property was critical to erasing slave-oriented social order.^[43] In addition to speaking out, some demanded plots and moved into their master’s plantation homes by force.^[44] Others bought land collectively, or squatted on what was undeveloped.^[45] Throughout war and Reconstruction, the presence of Federal troops provided a platform for agricultural policy. In 1865, William Tecumseh Sherman issued Field Order 15, taking coastal land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and dividing it into 40-acre plots for black settlement, hence the term "40 acres and a mule".^[46]

In March, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau, whose commissioner had authority to redistribute confiscated or abandoned southern land.^[47] The Bureau held 850,000 acres (3,400 km²), and key directors pushed for its settling with former slaves. When President Andrew Johnson began to pardon Confederates and restore their property, Commissioner Oliver O. Howard issued Circular 13. The order instructed agents to establish 40-acre parcels with haste. Johnson rescinded the order, and an overwhelming majority of Bureau land returned to its previous owners.^[48]

The final reform attempts of Reconstruction occurred within state governments. In South Carolina, a land commission was established, which purchased property and sold it on long-term credit.^[49] Other state Republicans utilized new tax systems, penalizing large estates, to seize and divide land and stimulate black ownership. This indirect method achieved little, as taxes were repaid and lands were reclaimed. Of property not redeemed, much was exploited by investors.^[50]

Ultimately, Reconstruction was discounted as 'Socialism' by moderates committed to free-market transformation, a popular new line of political attack^[51] levied against the likes of Boss Tweed and Benjamin F. Butler alike.^[52] Radicals began to fall even earlier, with the failure of Johnson’s impeachment. Liberal Republicans, eroding the era's political landscape, called for an immediate end to “black barbarism”.^[53][54] White supremacist violence and financial panic^[55] weakened Reconstruction to the breaking point. With the Compromise of 1877, it was finished.^[56]

United States – West

In the 19th century, Indian tribes owned about 138 million acres (560,000 km²) of land in the USA. Land was considered the property of the whole tribe, which used it to cater to the needs of the individual tribe members. This approach to land ownership was different than the white European approach, which regarded land as private property of individuals.

Many US politicians believed it was important to assimilate Native Americans into white American culture, and thus have their lands open for commerce and development. The Dawes Act (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act), adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe would be granted United States citizenship. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891, and again in 1906 by the Burke Act.

Through the Dawes Act, many Indians received private title to a land-plot, but most of the Indian lands were considered "surplus", and put to sale to white European settlers. Thus, the total amount of land owned by Indians decreased to only 48 million acres (190,000 km²) in 1934.

Most tribal land still owned by ethnic Indians was recollectivized in 1934.

Asia

Afghanistan

Afghanistan has had a couple of attempts at land reform.

In 1975, the government of president Mohammad Daoud Khan responded to the inequities of the existing land tenure conditions by issuing a Land Reform Law. It limited individual holdings to a maximum of 20 hectares of irrigated, double-cropped land. Larger holdings were allowed for less productive land. The government was to expropriate all surplus land and pay compensation. To prevent the proliferation of small, uneconomic holdings, priority for redistributed lands was to be given to neighboring farmers with two hectares or less. Landless sharecroppers, laborers, tenants, and nomads had next priority. Despite the government's rhetorical commitment to land reform, the program was quickly postponed. Because the government's landholding limits applied to families, not individuals, wealthy families avoided expropriation by dividing their lands nominally between family members. The high ceilings for landholdings restricted the amount of land actually subject to redistribution. Finally, the government lacked the technical data and organizational bodies to pursue the program after it was announced.

After the 1978 Saur Revolution, the communist Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) issued Decree No. 6, which canceled gerau and other mortgage debts of agricultural laborers, tenants, and small landowners with less than two hectares of land. The cancellation applied only to debts contracted before 1973. The Decree No. 8 of November 1978 made new landholdings from the 20 hectares of prime irrigated land in the 1975 law to just six hectares. It divided all land into seven classes and again allowed for larger holdings of less productive land. There was no compensation for government-expropriated surplus land and it established categories of farmers who had priority for redistributed land; sharecroppers already working on the land had highest priority.^[57][58]

China

China has been through a series of land reforms, several of which resulted in the deaths of millions of Chinese citizens.

In the 1940s, the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, funded with American money, with the support of the national government, carried out land reform and community action programs in several provinces.

In 1946, three years before the foundation of the People's Republic of China (PRC), The Communist Party of China launched a thorough land reform, which won the party millions of supporters among the poor and middle peasantry.

In the mid-1950s, a second land reform during the Great Leap Forward compelled individual farmers to join collectives, which, in turn, were grouped into People's communes with centrally controlled property rights and an egalitarian principle of distribution. This policy was generally a failure in terms of production.^[59] The PRC reversed this policy in 1962 through the proclamation of the Sixty Articles. As a result, the ownership of the basic means of production was divided into three levels with collective land ownership vested in the production team (see also Ho [2001]).

A third land reform beginning in the late 1970s re-introduced the family-based contract system known as the Household Responsibility System, was followed by a period of stagnation. Chen, Wang, and Davis [1998] suggest that the stagnation was due, in part, to a system of periodic redistributions that encouraged over-exploitation rather than private capital investment in future productivity.^[59] However, although land use rights were returned to individual farmers, collective land ownership was left undefined after the disbandment of the People's Communes.

Since 1983, China has launched a series of land policy reforms to improve land-use efficiency, to rationalize land allocation, to enhance land management, and to coordinate urban and rural development. These land policy reforms have yielded positive impacts on urban land use as well as negative socioeconomic consequences. On the positive side, they have contributed to emerging land markets, increased government revenue for the financing of massive infrastructure projects and provision of public goods, and improved the rationalization of land use. On the negative side, problems such as loss of social equity, socioeconomic conflicts, and government corruption have emerged.^[60]

Since 1998 China is in the midst of drafting the new Property Law which is the first piece of national legislation that will define the land ownership structure in China for years to come. The Property Law forms the basis for China's future land policy of establishing a system of freehold, rather than of private ownership (see also Ho, [2005]).

India

Under the British occupation, the land system in India has been feudalic, with few absentee landlords holding most of the lands and claiming high rents from poor peasants. The demand for a land reform was a major theme in the demand for independence. After independence, the different states in India gradually started a land reform process in four main categories: abolition of intermediaries (rent collectors under the pre-Independence land revenue system); tenancy regulation (to improve the contractual terms including security of tenure); a ceiling on landholdings (to redistribute surplus land to the landless); and attempts to consolidate disparate landholdings. The extent and success of these reforms varied greatly between the different states of India.

Japan

The first land reform in recent history, called the Land Tax Reform or chisokaisei (地租改正), passed in 1873, six years after the Meiji Restoration. It established the right of private land ownership in Japan for the first time and was a major restructuring of the previous land taxation system.

The government initially ordered individual farmers to measure the plots of their land themselves, calculate their taxes, and submit the results to local tax officials. However, difficulties arose with the honesty of the measuring system and the government responded by forcefully changing land values to meet the set amount if self-reported values did not meet projected values. This caused widespread resentment among farmers and several large-scale riots, causing the government to lower the tax rate from 3% to 2.5%. The department continued its aggressive taxation until 1878, but the strictness of rules gradually decreased as it became clear that required amounts would be met. By 1880, seven years after the start of the land reforms, the new system had been completely implemented.

Private land ownership was recognized for the first time in Japan with the issuing of land titles. Previously, individual farmers were merely borrowing the land from feudal lords, who in turn were borrowing the land from the emperor. The reform abolished this archaic system of land ownership, and began to allow landowners to use their property as a financial asset in collateral or other investment. This law was one of the first steps towards the development of capitalism in Japan, paralleling the English (and later United Kingdom) statute Quia Emptores enacted several centuries earlier.

Another major land reform was carried out in 1947, during the occupied era after World War II, under instructions of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers based on a proposal from the Japanese government which had been prepared before the defeat of the Greater Japanese Empire. This last reform is also called Nōchi-kaihō (農地解放, emancipation of farming land).

Between 1947 and 1949, approximately 5,800,000 acres (23,000 km²) of land (approximately 38% of Japan's cultivated land) was purchased from the landlords under the reform program and re-sold at extremely low prices (after inflation) to the farmers who worked them. By 1950, three million peasants had acquired land, dismantling a power structure that the landlords had long dominated.^[61]

Philippines

During the Macapagal Administration in the early 1960s, a limited land reform program was initiated in Central Luzon covering rice fields.

During the martial law era of the Ferdinand Marcos Administration, Presidential Decree 27 instituted a land reform program covering rice and corn farms. Rice and corn production under this land reform program was heavily supported by the Marcos Administration with land distribution and financing program known as the Masagana 99 and other production loans that led to increased rice and corn production. The country produced enough rice for local consumption and became a rice exporter during that period.

The Corazon Aquino Administration in the mid-1980s instituted a very controversial land reform known as CARP which covered all agricultural lands. The program led to rice shortages in the succeeding years and lasted for 20 years without accomplishing the goal of land distribution. The program caused entrepreneurs to stay away from agriculture and a number of productive farmers left the farming sector. The CARP was a monumental failure in terms of cost to the government and the landowners whose lands were subjective to legal landgrabbing by the government. CARP expired at the end of December 2008.^[62]

Sri Lanka

In 1972, the Government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, through the Land Reform Law, imposed a ceiling of twenty hectares on privately owned land and sought to distribute lands in excess of the ceiling for the benefit of landless peasants. Both land owned by public companies and paddy lands under ten hectares in extent were exempted from this ceiling. Between 1972 and 1974, the Land Reform Commission took over nearly 228,000 hectares. In 1975 the Land Reform (Amendment) Law brought over 169,000 hectares of plantations owned by companies (including British-owned companies) under state control.^[63]

South Korea

From 1945 to 1950, United States and South Korean authorities carried out a land reform that retained the institution of private property. They confiscated and redistributed all land held by the Japanese colonial government, Japanese companies, and individual Japanese colonists. The Korean government carried out a reform whereby Koreans with large landholdings were obliged to divest most of their land. A new class of independent, family proprietors was created.

Taiwan

In the 1950s, after the Nationalist government came to Taiwan, land reform and community development was carried out by the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction. This course of action was made attractive, in part, by the fact that many of the large landowners were Japanese who had fled, and the other large landowners were compensated with Japanese commercial and industrial properties seized after Taiwan reverted from Japanese rule in 1945. The land program succeeded also because the Kuomintang were mostly from the mainland and had few ties to the remaining indigenous landowners. See also: Taiwan Land Reform Museum

Vietnam

In the years after World War II land redistribution to poor and landless peasants was initiated by the communist Viet Minh insurgents in areas which they controlled. After the partition of the country into two parts, North Vietnam and South Vietnam the communist land reform (1953–1956) redistributed land to more than 2 million poor peasants, but at a cost of thousands, possibly tens of thousands of lives ^[64] and contributed to the exodus of up to 1 million people from the North to the South in 1954 and 1955.. The land reform campaign was accompanied by large scale repression and excesses.^[65] some of which were subsequently criticized within the ruling Workers Party of Vietnam itself.^[65][66][67]

South Vietnam made several further attempts in the post-Diem years, the most ambitious being the Land to the Tiller program instituted in 1970 by President Nguyen Van Thieu. This limited individuals to 15 hectares, compensated the owners of expropriated tracts, and extended legal title to peasants who in areas under control of the South Vietnamese government to whom had land had previously been distributed by the Viet Cong.

Summary table

The following table summarizes many land reforms that are not mentioned in this page. The color in the "Year" column is darker for earlier periods and brighter for later periods.

Place	Reformer	Year	Ideology / motivations	Actions	Outcomes
MiddleEast: Egypt	Joseph	−1500	Monarchism / strengthen the Pharaoh	Nationalization / Joseph bought all lands for Pharaoh	Egyptian peasants became serfs of Pharaoh
MiddleEast: Egypt	Bakenranef	−720	Help the peasants	Freedom to peasants / land alienability / debt annulment	Bakenranef murdered, reforms undone
Europe: Greece / Athens	Solon	−575	Help the poor and prevent an uprising	Freedom to peasants / debt annulment / forbid slavery of Athenians	poverty somewhat alleviated
Europe: Greece / Athens	Peisistratos	−560	Help the poor while strengthening the tyrant	Land redistribution from rich to poor	Athenian aristocracy weakened, poverty somewhat reduced
Europe: Greece / Sparta	Agis IV and Cleomenes III	−244– −227	Help the poor while strengthening the army	Land redistribution / debt annulment	Reformer kings murdered by opponents, reforms undone
Europe: Italy / Rome	Gracchi brothers	−133– −121	Help the landless soldiers	Land redistribution / enforcement of land ceiling law	Reformer tribunes murdered by Senate, reforms undone
Europe: France / Savoy	Victor Amadeus II	1720–1793	Economics / Increase royal income and weaken the nobility	Freedom to peasants / abolish serfdom duties / confiscate lands from lords	all estates were at least partially emancipated
Europe: Prussia	various	1763–1850	Economics / Modernize the state by improving the peasants' conditions	Freedom to peasants from serfdom duties / enable serfs to become free landlords	nobles bought much more land than peasants
Europe: Italy / Sicily	various	1773–1865	Enlightenment / Liberate the peasants and strengthen the king	Nationalize noble lands; Reduce duties of peasants to landlords; Abolish private landlord armies; Distribute common lands to poor peasants.	The rich bought most lands and became richer; the Sicilian Mafia was born.
Europe: Austria / Habsburg monarchy	Maria Theresa and Joseph II	1680–1790	Enlightenment / Liberate peasants, increase tax revenues	Freedom to peasants from serfdom duties	nobles did not cooperate and laws were not enforced
Europe: Austria / Austrian empire	Constituent Assembly	1849	Enlightenment / Liberate peasants	Freedom to peasants; subsidized purchase of their lands	feudal law abolished, but most land remained concentrated with the nobles
Europe: Britain / Ireland	William Ewart Gladstone and UK government	1870–1922	Historic justice to Irish natives	Land transfer from large English landlords to their Irish tenants, funded by UK government	By 1922, over 90% of lands had been transferred
Europe: Russia / Russian empire	Alexander II	1861	Enlightenment / Liberate peasants	Freedom to peasants; subsidized purchase of their lands	More than 23 million people received their liberty, but many of them received land insufficient for survival and became proletariat
Europe: Russia / Russian empire	Stolypin	1906–1916	Economics / Encourage private property and capitalism	Liquidize communal villages and divide lands to individual peasants.	Private land holdings increased, but reforms were reversed after Soviet revolution
Europe: Russia / Soviet union	Lenin	1917	Communism / Abolish private property	Private ownership of land was prohibited	Private land holdings increased, but reforms were reversed after Soviet revolution
Europe: Russia / Russian Federation	Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin	1989–2001	Privatization / Allow private property	Private ownership of land was re-allowed in several stages	Private ownership is gradually increasing
Europe: Albania / Albania	Post-WW2 government	1946	Social justice	Constitution declared that land belonged to the tiller and disallowed large estates	By 1954, more than 90% of land was held in small and mid-sized farms.
Europe: Albania / Albania	Communist government	1958–1962	Communism / Collectivization drive	Most agricultural lands were shifted to Soviet-style collective and state farms.	By 1971, independent family farms had virtually disappeared
Europe: Albania / Albania	Post-communist government	1991	Privatization / re-allow private property	Arable land held in cooperatives and state farms was equally distributed among all rural households.	Land was privatized.
SouthAmerica: Mexico	Miguel Lerdo, Porfirio Díaz	1856–1910	Liberalism and economics	Forced sale of corporately held property, specifically lands held by the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico and indigenous communities.	Changed the nature of land tenure in Mexico. But, Most Indian land was acquired by large estates. 95% of villages lost their lands.
SouthAmerica: Mexico (after revolution)	Álvaro Obregón, Lázaro Cárdenas	1910–1940	Social justice	Allocate land to peasants in need of it	Reversed the process of land concentration, reduced the power and legitimacy of the landlord class. Much land was allocated to peasants, agricultural production increased.
Asia: Philippines	various	1946–2014	Social justice	Land redistribution laws	Some lands were distributed to landless peasants, but agricultural production suffered.
Asia: Taiwan	various	1950s	Modernization / community development		The JCRR is credited with laying the agricultural basis for Taiwan's outstanding economic growth in the following decades
MiddleEast: Egypt	Nasser	1952–1961	Social justice	Land redistribution	15% of arable land redistributed; reforms undone after change of government
Asia: Vietnam / North	Hồ Chí Minh	1953–1956	Communism / break the power of the traditional village elite and redistribute their holdings.	Landlords were murdered by government and their land redistributed to peasants	Thousands were killed, and 1 million people fled to the South
Asia: Vietnam / South	Nguyen Van Thieu	1970	Social welfare / gain support from rural population during the Vietnam war.	Land ceiling, land redistribution with compensation to previous landlords	Land was redistributed, but law became meaningless 5 years later at the fall of Saigon.
SouthAmerica: Guatemala	Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Arbenz	1953–1954	Social justice	Expropriation of land and redistribution to peasants	The reform itself was successful, but a later US-backed coup reversed it entirely.
SouthAmerica: Cuba	Che Guevara	1959–1963	Communism	Nationalization of large estates and redistribution to peasants / land ceiling	peasants were given land rights, but these rights are constrained by government production quotas and a prohibition of real estate transactions
Asia: India	various	1961–	Economics / modernize the agriculture and end the exploitation of the poor	Abolition of rent-collectors; Secure land-tenure; Land ceiling; Consolidate disparate holdings.	In parts of India redistribution of land became more equitable; in other parts, people found loopholes in ceiling laws.
SouthAmerica: Bolivia	Víctor Paz Estenssoro, Evo Morales	1953–2006	Social justice	abolish forced peasantry labor, distribute rural property of traditional landlords to Indian peasants, organize peasants into armed militias.	By 1970, 45% of peasant families had received title to land. The reform goes on.
SouthAmerica: Chile	Jorge Alessandri	1962–1973	Social Justice	Nationalization of large estates and redistribution to peasants	After the 1973 coup the process was halted and somewhat reversed by market forces
Africa: Ethiopia	various	1975	Social justice	Nationalization of large estates and redistribution to peasants / abolish tenancy	end of feudal law, strengthening of peasants
Oceania: Australia	various	1976–2004	Historic justice to Indigenous Australians	Several laws giving land rights to Aboriginals	Large lands have been returned to Aboriginals
SouthAmerica: Venezuela	Hugo Chávez	2001–2003	Social Justice	Redistribute government and unused private land to campesinos in need	60K families received land title
Europe: Britain / Scotland	Scottish Parliament	2003	Social justice / Freedom to farmer communities	Farmer communities can buy their lands without landlord consent	end of feudal law

See also

• Anti-globalization movement
• Communism
• Eminent domain
• Georgism
• Homestead principle
• Land Banking
• Land claim
• Land reform
• Land Reform in Developing Countries
• Land rights
• Land value tax
• Open field system and Inclosure
• Restitution
• Squatter

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Land reform.