Gender and Agrarian Reforms

Susie Jacobs

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780415807999
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135244385
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Agribusiness
• Index: Business

The redistribution of land has profound implications for women and for gender relations; however, gender issues have been marginalised from both theoretical and policy discussions of agrarian reform. This book presents an overview of gender and agrarian reform experiences globally. Jacobs highlights case studies from Latin America, Asia, Africa and eastern Europe and also compares agrarian and land reforms organised along collective lines as well as along individual household lines. This volume will be of interest to scholars in Geography, Women's Studies, and Economics.

Part I

Theoretical Perspectives

1 Debates Over Agrarian Reform

Agrarian and land reforms across the world have differed widely both in intention and implementation. Agrarian reforms have often been associated with social and political revolution, but sometimes programmes have sought amelioration of an existing socio-economic order. In recent years, the term ‘reform’ has also been applied to market-led economic restructuring, including of land tenure. While greater equity in landholdings is a common objective, even this is debatable. This chapter asks what agrarian reform is. What are the purposes of agrarian and land reforms, and what circumstances provoke or enable them? How do agrarian reforms differ from one another?

I address these questions by reviewing some of the general literature on land and agrarian reforms and provide an overview of several themes. Many of the studies are gender blind or else mention gender relations only in passing. Thus, I do not deal with gendered implications of land and agrarian reforms but highlight some relevant themes which are discussed later in the book in the context of case studies. The first section analyses definitional disputes. The second discusses reasons and rationales for agrarian reform. The third gives an overview of three controversies of relevance to land and agrarian reforms.

The terms ‘land reform’ and ‘agrarian reform’ often overlap but are not precisely the same. Agrarian reform is considered to have a wider meaning than land reform. A situation of agrarian reform covers not only a wide redistribution of land but also provision of infrastructure, services, and sometimes, a whole programme of redistributive and democratic reforms. Land reform refers to a narrower redistribution of land, usually to a limited group of beneficiaries. However, in practice, the two terms tend to be used interchangeably.

WHAT IS AGRARIAN REFORM?

The classic definitions of agrarian and land reform belong to the ‘moment’ of developmental states. Particularly after World War II and decolonisation, it was assumed that the state and state policy could be a ‘motor’ of development and societal restructuring. Agrarian reforms are one example of such developmentalist policies. The assumption was that the state would provide support services and that redistribution of income and property would provide overall social benefits. The classic examples are in South Korea and Taiwan, but the Chinese state also played a developmental role. One of the earliest agrarian reforms took place in Mexico from the 1930s, and its aim was developmentalist.

In this paradigm, land reform comprises:

i) compulsory takeover of land, usually by the state, from the biggest landowners and with partial compensation; and

ii) farming of that land in such a way as to spread the benefits of the man-land [sic] relationship more widely than before the takeover. … Land reform, so defined is an equalising policy, at least in intention. (Lipton 1974)

Land reform entails change in agrarian structure resulting in increased access to land by the rural poor and secured tenure for those who actually work the land (Ghimire 2001: 7). Small cultivators should obtain greater control over the use of land and better terms in their relationships with the rest of society.

Agrarian reform, then, constitutes widespread redistribution of land. It aims to empower poor peasants and to alter the agrarian and class structure of rural society. Some argue that agrarian reform is therefore a revolutionary political concept rather than a reformist one. Solon Barraclough wrote,

It implies changes in power relationships towards greater participation of the rural poor in decision making at all levels and especially in decisions directly affecting their livelihoods. In other words, it has revolutionary implications. (1991: 102)

In practice, however, redistributive land reforms are often much less than revolutionary and take place for a variety of reasons and in a variety of circumstances. These circumstances range from widespread mobilisation to benefit poor peasants, tenants, and the landless to top-down reforms by authoritarian states. Peru’s 1968 land reform, for instance, was instituted autonomously by the military government. Other reforms take place due to external influence. For instance, the extensive and successful land reforms in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea were instituted due to pressure by the USA, and in order to forestall socialist mobilisation by giving smallholders more of a stake in the system. It was felt that more equitable landholdings would provide a basis for a democratic society (Montgomery 1984; Prosterman and Riedinger 1987). In Latin America, the US-backed Alliance for Progress carried out land reforms with similar intent. The US government saw land reforms with individual family tenure as the ‘perfect package’, a solution that would raise rural incomes, boost industrialisation processes, and calm peasant unrest (Deere and León 1987; Thiesenhusen 1995).

Attempts have been made to categorise different types of agrarian and land reforms, commonly according to their wider political and economic intents. The nature of the government enacting reforms and the extent of land redistributed are also significant. Thus, revolutionary, conservative, and liberal land reforms may be distinguished (Putzel 1992). These categories are demarcated by policy with regard to several variables, including the form of property rights, transformation or maintenance of state structures, and the process through which agrarian reform is achieved. For instance, a ‘revolutionary’ reform has often followed political uprisings that change state regimes. These might expropriate a large amount of agricultural land, redistribute it in collectives, and see such agrarian reform as part of a wider process of social change. A ‘conservative’ reform, conversely, leaves the basic social and political framework intact and usually redistributes less land. Land tends to be purchased by the state and redistributed to a particular group of cultivators for farming on a family or household basis. For instance, in India 1.5 per cent of land had been redistributed to 2 per cent of producers by 1992 in a society with deep and widespread poverty (Sobhan 1993). ‘Liberal’ agrarian or land reforms are more ambitious than this, seeking better conditions for rural cultivators but without overall social change. Thus, in Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s, a large amount of land, 43 per cent, was distributed to two-thirds of rural workers (Sobhan 1993). However, Mexico’s attempt at rural social transformation was limited by prioritising large-scale capitalist farming (see Chapter 7). Land reform is always a matter of degree (Borras 2005) as well as a matter of intent. The great majority of programmes have been incomplete, either redistributing little land or else allowing landlords continued power (Bandyopadhay 1996).

Typologies such as those mentioned may be useful, in my view, as an aid to understanding. However, actual agrarian reforms present complexities and are not always easily categorised (Barraclough 1991). For instance, individual and collective forms of tenure sometimes are intertwined (Zoomers 2000). Categorisations should not be used as ‘boxes’ which obscure social complexity.

Neoliberal ‘Reforms’

The advent of market-based land tenure changes and reforms since the late 1980s and early 1990s has further stretched the meaning of agrarian reform. In general, the question of agrarian reform fell off the political agenda in the 1980s, only to be ‘reinstated’ as a matter for debate and action later in the decade (FAO 2000; Borras 2003). However, this is in pursuit of an altered agenda in which neoliberal policies have become dominant, in line with International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank policies. The state is seen as a less important actor and usually has command over declining resources after structural adjustment programmes. The term ‘reform’ itself has often become part of a neoliberal discourse which has to do with dismantling of welfare and other state services and deregulation of labour markets. In agriculture, this implies privatisation of communal and collective land and titling of individual holdings as well as creation of a land market.

Since the 1970s, the World Bank has promoted land reform along with privatisation, and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have designed many such programmes. In the 1980s, titling of land was considered to be the appropriate mechanism for privatisation and economic liberalisation (Toulmin and Quan 2001). Reforms to land tenure were advocated alongside setting up reforms of macroeconomic policy, structural adjustment and orientation to production of export crops and goods (Fortin 2005). The World Bank’s newer policy document (2003) sees land as a key ‘asset’ for the rural poor and emphasises ‘productive’ use of land, ‘efficiency’, and profitability.

Reform is not simply change. Many changes may ultimately undermine land rights of the poor (see Chapters 7 and 8). The coalition of peasant and small farmer organisations, Vía Campesina [‘the peasant way’], for example, launched a global campaign for agrarian reform in 1999–2000 in defence of agrarian livelihoods that has attained a degree of prominence (Borras 2008). A number of rural movements today, including Vía Campesina, reject the term ‘land reform’ as applied to export agricultural models accompanied by privatisation. The World Forum on Agrarian Reform states,

The agrarian crisis created by the agro-export model under neo-liberalism is bleak indeed. But despite this, peasant, fishers’, indigenous peoples’ and rural workers’ movements … are more alive, more organized and more sophisticated than ever, and are actively engaged in resisting the destructive, dominant model. ( Foro Mundial sobre la Reforma Agraria [FMRA] 2004)

Throughout this book I continue to use the terms ‘land reform’ or ‘agrarian reform’ for redistributionist reforms. To avoid confusion, it is preferable to use other terms to describe rearrangements of land tenure and land titling. In concluding this discussion of terminology, it is pertinent to note that definitions of land reform from whatever quarter have generally ignored any notion of gender rights, despite the emphasis on the ‘rural poor’. The majority of the extremely poor in the world, at least 75 per cent, live in rural areas (IFAD 2001: 1). Within this category, women figure large. They constitute the majority of rural people and the majority of the poor globally. One important factor is the minimal extent of female property holding, with some estimates as low as 1 per cent globally (Rai 2002: 97).

REASONS FOR LAND REFORM

In theory, there exists wide consensus about the need for agrarian reform to alleviate rural poverty and hunger (Ghimire 2001: 1). Approximately 60 per cent of the world’s population still depends on agriculture as a livelihood source (Lipton 2005). Approximately one-third of the world’s peoples depend directly upon natural resources, including land and trees, for subsistence (Sachs, J. 2004). Thus, the need for agricultural land has not become redundant, even in a situation of livelihood diversification (Ellis 2000; Jacobs 2002).

This broad agreement in favour of agrarian reform is somewhat compromised by the different aims and scopes of reform in different countries. In particular, an issue is the extent to which the status quo might be disturbed by agrarian change that favours the poor. Nevertheless, many reasons for agrarian reform have been put forward. These encompass the social, economic, political, and ecological.

Social/Individual Human Rights

Land reform is often seen as crucial for the civil and human rights of sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and agricultural labourers. Possession of a parcel of land, even a small one, can give some basis to resist the demands and encroachments of landlords. Under the former feudal systems of Europe, Japan and colonial Latin America,¹ such domination was enshrined in law and custom. However, the power of the hacendado in Latin America and of landowning classes elsewhere often has feudal echoes in its arbitrariness. On remote estates, landowners may be able to exercise quasi-legal as well as economic powers, becoming in effect the rural political authority. Hacendados until recently often chose to exercise jus primus noctae, that is, their customary ‘right’ to have sexual relations with women tenants on their wedding night (Barraclough 1991).

Personal autonomy may thus be one of the most important gains of agrarian reform (Barraclough 1991). Adding gender into evaluation of agrarian and land reforms, however, means that the ‘story’ becomes more complex (see Chapter 3).

Economic Rationales

The economic case for land reform is crucial. The three most important reasons for land reform at the economic level are:

i) to raise agricultural productivity;

ii) to strengthen food security and to lessen poverty for rural house-holds; and

iii) to facilitate industrialisation by ‘feeding the cities’.

Redistribution of land is seen as a way to raise agricultural productivity and therefore to lessen poverty. Redistribution ensures land is utilised fully, given that many large agricultural estates contain underutilised land. Additionally, smallholders are considered to have more incentives than latifundistas to make productive investments, where these are possible. Land reforms are not always sufficient to guarantee escape from rural poverty (de Janvry et al. 2001). But they do provide sources of income and also insurance against price shocks. A growing literature shows the importance of land reform to physical capital formation and for economic growth (Dekker 2003). Comparative analysis demonstrates that agrarian reform is important in reducing rural poverty and in raising productivity (El-Ghonemy 1990). However, partial implementation of land reform leaves a situation in which large landowners can exercise great influence over land transactions and over policy (El-Ghonemy 1990). For this reason, more comprehensive reforms are often more efficacious.

A second, related, argument for land reform is its potential role in food security. Possession of, or rights to, land would allow peasant households both to cultivate food crops and to sell any cash crops produced instead of having the proceeds skimmed off by a landlord. This point has gender implications, given the widely cited argument that women attend to house-hold food security across many societies (Blumberg 1988; Kidder 1997; Kabeer and Tran 2002).

A further potential benefit of land redistribution is that it helps to broaden the home market through increasing incomes, consumption, and purchasing power. Industrialisation processes are thereby encouraged. This assumes a model of developmentalist industrialisation rather than industry based on export markets. A negative example is the Soviet Union, where agriculture was deliberately ‘squeezed’ until the 1960s in order to contribute to industrialisation. In other examples, a relatively egalitarian agrarian reform has contributed to subsequent industrialisation. These examples have been concentrated in East Asia: Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea (El-Ghonemy 1990; Bandyopadhay 1996).

Recently, arguments have also been made for economic rights as ‘human rights’. These can perhaps be distinguished from individual rights, as economic rights refer in part to group rights. For instance, the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) establishes a right to livelihood (see Chapter 9). The right to a livelihood and to food security is being claimed by some social movements as a human right to be campaigned for (Face It Act Now [FIAN] 2004), and this may have implications for agrarian reforms.

Political Rationales

Political rationales for land reform differ, not surprisingly, according to political interests and viewpoints. For many, a prime aim of land reform has been to break landlord power. Especially in societies in which agriculture remains of economic importance, landowners may be important government players and power brokers. This is particularly the case at local and regional levels. But despite the power of landlords, governments have sometimes been prepared to concede reform to quell peasant unrest that might lead to wider radicalisation. Or more positively, they have seen land reform as a way of strengthening the rural poor and transforming them into a new class of smallholders with a stake in society.

Movements for land reform have often been associated with the left, but they can come with a range of political motivations and associations. These may include ethnic and racialised mobilisations in which groups seek to reclaim lands lost to colonists, settlers, or to corporate interests (Christodoulou 1990). Relatedly, such claims can be tied to a nationalist agenda wherein land may symbolise collective identity; the US-backed agrarian reforms in Asia, for instance, had nationalist undertones. Increased demands by landowners or rising expectations among peasants can create conditions for militant movements. Thus, in Cuba, aggressive extension of plantations and the eviction of peasants set in motion an increasingly effective peasant resistance. This later aided the urban revolutionary movement. The rise in numbers of absentee landowners meant that the traditional bond between landlords and peasants underwent change, and systems became more transparently exploitative. A breach in traditional relations also played a part in a peasant movement in Ucureña, Bolivia. This grew from a desire to regain past conditions of land tenure (Huizer 2001) but led to a mobilisation that became national. Other movements such as those in the ex-settler societies of southern and eastern Africa are explicitly nationalist and anti-colonialist.

The Environment

Ecological arguments for land reform have come to the fore in recent years. It is argued that peasants with enough fertile land to farm will be less likely to encroach on rainforests, as occurred in Brazil, or to cultivate and to further degrade low-lying, unsuitable land as in Bangladesh (Handelman 2009). Those who are poor and hungry may be prone to harm or destroy their immediate environments in order to survive. Marginal agricultural lands may be overused or overgrazed grasslands. Alternatively, people are often forced to migrate to cities which already have dense populations and rural areas may become depopulated. Land reform programmes can themselves encroach into fragile environments under pressure to distribute land (Dekker 2003). Agrarian reform, if properly organised and administered, however, can be a potential bulwark against increasing environmental degradation driven by poverty. The Landless Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra, or MST) in Brazil is attempting to foster sustainable agricultural methods...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge International Studies of Women and Place
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I Theoretical Perspectives
• PART II Collectives and Decollectivisations
• PART III Household Models of Reform and Alternatives
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index