Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, land economics, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Land reform is often considered a contentious process, as land is a key driver of a wide range of social, political and economic outcomes. The structure and distribution of land rights has been linked to state formation, economic growth, inequality, political violence, and identity politics, making land reform highly consequential for the long-term structures of society.
Overview Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural land. Land reform can, therefore, refer to transfer of ownership from the more powerful to the less powerful, such as from a relatively small number of wealthy or noble owners with extensive land holdings (e.g., plantations, large ranches, or agribusiness plots) to individual ownership by those who work the land. Such transfers of ownership may be with or without compensation; compensation may vary from token amounts to the full value of the land. Land reform may also entail the transfer of land from individual ownership—even peasant ownership in smallholdings—to government-owned collective farms; it has also, in other times and places, referred to the exact opposite: division of government-owned collective farms into smallholdings. The common characteristic of all land reforms is modification or replacement of existing institutional arrangements governing possession and use of land. Thus, while land reform may be radical in nature, such as through large-scale transfers of land from one group to another, it can also be less dramatic, such as regulatory reforms aimed at improving land administration.
Land usage and tenure
Land ownership and tenure can be perceived as controversial in part because ideas defining what it means to access or control land, such as through "land ownership" or "land tenure", can vary considerably across regions and even within countries. Land reforms, which change what it means to control land, therefore create tensions and conflicts between those who lose and those who gain from these redefinitions (see next section). Western conceptions of land have evolved over the past several centuries to place greater emphasis on individual land ownership, formalized through documents such as land titles. Control over land may also be perceived less in terms of individual ownership and more in terms of land use, or through what is known as land tenure. Historically, in many parts of Africa for example, land was not owned by an individual, but rather used by an extended family or a village community. Different people in a family or community had different rights to access this land for different purposes and at different times. Such rights were often conveyed through oral history and not formally documented. These different ideas of land ownership and tenure are sometimes referred to using different terminology. For example, "formal" or "statutory" land systems refer to ideas of land control more closely affiliated with individual land ownership. "Informal" or "customary" land systems refer to ideas of land control more closely affiliated with land tenure. Terms dictating control over and use of land can therefore take many forms. Some specific examples of present-day or historic forms of formal and informal land ownership include:
Traditional land tenure, as practiced by the indigenous tribes of Pre-Columbian North America. Feudal land ownership, through fiefdoms Life estate, interest in real property that ends at death. Fee tail, hereditary, non-transferable ownership of real property. Fee simple. Under common law, this is the most complete ownership interest one can have in real property. Leasehold or rental Rights to use a common Sharecropping Run rig and rundale Well-field system Easements Kibbutz and moshav Satoyama Agricultural labor – under which someone works the land in exchange for money, payment in kind, or some combination of the two Collective ownership Access to land through a membership in a cooperative, or shares in a corporation, which owns the land (typically by fee simple or its equivalent, but possibly under other arrangements). Government collectives, such as those that might be found in communist states, whereby government ownership of most agricultural land is combined in various ways with tenure for farming collectives.
Motivation
Land reform is a deeply political process and therefore many arguments for and against it have emerged. These arguments vary tremendously over time and place. In the twentieth century, many land reforms emerged from a particular political ideology, such as communism or socialism. In the 19th century in colonized states, a colonial government may have changed the laws dictating land ownership to better consolidate political power or to support its colonial economy. In more recent times, electoral mobilization and the use of land as a patronage resource have been proposed as possible motivations for land reform efforts, such as the extensive redistributive land reforms of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Theoretical and Ideological Perspectives 19th-century political economist Henry George offered a distinct critique of both private land monopoly and traditional redistributive land reforms. In Progress and Poverty (1879), George argued that physically dividing land among smallholders fails to resolve the economic root of poverty, as land speculation and the private capture of economic rent eventually concentrate wealth again. Instead of state confiscation or physical land division, George advocated for a land value tax (LVT) to capture the unearned increment of land values for public benefit, aiming to socialize land rent while leaving land use in private hands.
Arguments for Arguments in support of land reform focus on its potential social and economic benefits, particularly in developing countries, that may emerge from reforms focused on greater land formalization. Such benefits may include eradicating food insecurity and alleviating rural poverty.
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