Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
property claims surfaced between the state, the fruit companies, land
speculators, and small-scale cultivators, many of whom lacked legal title
to their farms. In February 1905, William Streich, head of Cuyamel Fruit,
complained to government o
cials in Tegucigalpa that he was having
''greattrouble''selectingandsurveyinglandsinaccordancewiththeterms
of his concession. He added, ''I can no longer wait for the adjustment of
private claims of title but must begin planting and railroad construction
at once to meet the impatience of my associates.''
9
If and how the com-
peting parties resolved their claims is unclear. Similar conflicts arose as
a result of the 1912 concession acquired by the Tela Railroad Company.
Less than three weeks after the text of the contract appeared in the public
record, the Honduran Minister of Agriculture sent a telegram to Héctor
Medina, an o
cial in La Ceiba, requesting that he suspend the processing
of fourteen pending requests for property titles. Eight of the titles were for
lands in the municipality of Tela that apparently were also claimed by the
TelaRailroadCompany.Medina'sresponseexpressedhisconcernoverthe
government's failure to adequately survey and title land claims made in
the region.
10
He was particularly worried that ''poor campesinos'' would
be thrown off their lands and urged that a government-supplied surveyor
bedispatchedtomeasureandissuepropertitlestothosewhocouldnotaf-
fordtohireaprivatesurveyor.Acknowledgingtheneedtolocatethelands
claimed by the railroad builders, Medina tactfully reminded his superior
that the properties in question had been ceded sometime beforehand. He
therefore urged that the titling process continue.
Medina's doubts about the ability of poor farmers to title their lands
were reiterated by Ulises Meza Calix in 1918. In a telegram sent to the
Ministro de Fomento, Calix explained that he was frequently approached
by small-scale cultivators who were anxious to title their long-held lands
but prevented from doing so due to the expenses involved (titling proce-
dures had to be done in far-off Tegucigalpa).
11
Calix recommended that
the central government allow regional o
ces to title properties not ex-
ceeding25hectares.AtelegramsenttotheMinistrode Fomentothatsame
year confirmed Calix's concerns. Writing from San Francisco, Atlántida,
Jesús A. Ballestrosa explained that he represented some seventy families
that foreight years had been occupying national lands.The families culti-
vated more than 400 hectares of bananas and othercrops, including corn,
beans, and rice. However, the Vaccaros (Standard Fruit) were seeking to
evict them from these lands, an action Ballestrosa considered ''counter-
productive and unjust since the land is not included in its titles and be-
sides, we have been paying rent during the time that we have occupied
