Land reform has been a recurring theme of enormous consequence in world history. They are often highly political and have been achieved (or attempted) in many countries.
Latin America As a region, Latin America has historically been characterized by land inequality. Attempts at reforms were made in numerous countries in the aftermath of independence, as well as in the second half of the 20th century. Attempts to initiate land reforms have often sparked resistance by political and economic elites, which have resulted in coups and political instability.
Argentina During and after the colonial period, Argentina has had political conflict between various groups and interests over land policy.
In 1836, the Argentine government sold 1,500 square leagues of public land to pay off government debts. President Nicolás Avellaneda implemented a land reform in 1876. The Argentine Homestead Act of October 12, 1884, modeled on similar policy in the United States, provided grants for people to settle remote agricultural lands in Patagonia and the Chaco. Once certain conditions were met, these individuals would get permanent title to their lands.
In contrast to other Latin American countries, Argentina's agricultural system during the 20th century did not have a semi-feudal system.
Brazil Getúlio Vargas, who rose to presidency in Brazil following the Revolution of 1930, promised a land reform but reneged on his promise.
A first attempt to make a nationwide 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 action.
Bolivia
Land in Bolivia was unequally distributed – 92% of the cultivable land was held by large estates – until the Bolivian national revolution in 1952. Then, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement government abolished forced peasantry labor and established a program of expropriation and distribution of the rural property of the traditional landlords to the indigenous 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 were expropriated. After the 1973 coup the process was halted by the military junta and substantially reversed.
Colombia Alfonso López Pumarejo (1934–1938) passed 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, 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.Matsetela (2000)
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. The decree of May 1959 held that no corporation could own land, no private landowner could own more than 990 acres (with exceptions), and that each agricultural alborer would receive 66 acres for free. 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. However, by 1962, 80 percent of all land was held by the government while the rest was held by small proprietors. In July 1962, Castro announced there would be an end to cooperatives and that those farms would all become "state farms."
El Salvador Historically, El Salvador had inequitable distribution of land, with most of it concentrated among the so-called Fourteen Families. Whereas other states in Latin America had implemented land reforms, El Salvador still had a highly inequitable land system by the middle of the 20th century. By 1980, 38% of El Salvadorans were landless. Grievances related to land inequality have been characterized as a contributing factor to the Salvadoran Civil War.
Guatemala
Land reform occurred during the "Ten Years of Spring" (1944–1954) under the governments of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Árbenz, 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 . If the estates were between and in size, uncultivated land was expropriated only if less than two-thirds of it was in use. The law benefited 500,000 people, or one-sixth of the Guatemalan Population. Historians have called this reform as 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 Árbenz in 1954. The majority of the reform was rolled back by the US-supported military dictatorship that followed.
Haiti Following Haiti's independence from France, land was distributed widely among the population. Most of the land ended in the hands of mullato Haitians.
During the presidency of Lysius Salomon (1879–1888), state land was distributed to farmers for the purposes of growing food intended for exports. The reform also enabled foreign companies to own land in Haiti (a practice that had been forbidden since independence).
Mexico
In 1856, the first land reform was driven by the (the Lerdo law), enacted by the Liberal Party government of the Second Federal Republic of Mexico. One of the aims of the reform government was to develop the economy by returning to productive cultivation the underutilized lands of the Roman Catholic Church and the municipal communities (Indian commons), which required the division of these lands for sale, with the expectation that Mexico would develop a class of 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. Little land was acquired by individual small holders. After the war, the role of the state in land policy expanded during the presidency of Porfirio Diaz. The aim was to extinguish traditional subsistence farming and make agriculture in Mexico a dynamic commercial sector as part of Mexico's modernization. Land was concentrated in the hands of large-scale owners, a great many of them foreigners, leaving peasantry, the largest sector of the Mexican population, landless. Peasant unrest was a major cause of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–20. A certain degree of land reform was introduced, albeit unevenly, as part of the Mexican Revolution.Markiewicz, Dana. The Mexican Revolution and the Limits of Land Reform, 1915-1946. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publisher 1993. The land reforms reduced inequality.
In 1934, president Lázaro Cárdenas passed the 1934 Agrarian Code and accelerated the pace of land reform. He helped redistribute of land, 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's 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 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 and was tolerated by the new government of Violeta Chamorro.
Peru Land reform in the 1950s largely eliminated a centuries-old system of debt peonage. In 1965, a guerilla movement in the Southern highlands, which sought land reform, was defeated by counterinsurgency forces.