Agrarian Reform, Land Redistribution, and Small-Farm Policy

Abstract

Most CHEs occur in poor countries. Many such emergencies involve land in some way. Famines are due to problems in the realm of production of and access to food often in combination with violent conflict. Rural violence often revolves around land disputes and/or landlessness. And an unequal distribution of land contributes to low incomes, poverty and maldistribution of income, all of which tend to go with poor infrastructure, poor health and educational services and other factors which may predispose towards emergencies. Accordingly, a system of land rights which provides broad access to the population, combined with policies strongly supportive of small-scale agriculture appears to be one of the best forms of insurance against CHEs, judging by their absence in countries or regions where equalizing agrarian reforms have been implemented. When the initial land distribution differs markedly from the desired one, this implies a need for agrarian reform. Ironically, though its potential for good is seldom tapped, those relatively few episodes where it has been have contributed positively to the welfare of tens of millions (perhaps hundreds of millions) of the most down-trodden people.