Food, Justice, and Land - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 255

This chapter proceeds on the premise that the changed global agrarian context has
revived the relevance of land reform—but has, at the same time, exposed its narrow
parameters. That land reform is a relevant policy linked to food politics is beyond ques-
tion. In settings marked by unequal distribution of private lands, the conventional land
reform remains as urgent and necessary as ever before. But it is not the only relevant and
urgent redistributive land policy, or even the most important one. One reason is that
the current global enclosures target lands that are not under full-scale private property
systems. A broader and inclusive concept of “pro-poor redistributive land policy” cap-
tures more fully the nexus between food politics and land politics in contemporary era
of global land rush. Hence, there is a need to rethink land reform in the current era.
Dominant Land-Policy Currents
During the past three decades, there has been a move away from conventional land
reform in development-policy thinking—but not as a response to the changing context
explained earlier. Rather, it has been part of the neoliberal resurgence. It is important to
explain this phenomenon because it is casually passed on as a good thing that land has
been revived in mainstream development discourse, and, at times, insinuated to be what
and how “land reform” ought to be in contemporary context.
The meaning of land and land policies is diverse across, and contested within, local
and international settings. The diversity of the policy questions required to address
diverse land issues is perhaps one of the key reasons why “land policy” is the popular
phrase used to refer to all policies that have something to do with land. Conventional
phrases that are quite specific in terms of what they actually mean are used increasingly
less, such as “land reform.” These and other land-related policies are gathered together
under one catch-all label, land policy . Instead of value-laden terms such as land reform,
the term land policy (often with the prefix pro-poor ) portrays an almost “neutral” mes-
sage (see, e.g., World Bank 2003).
The contemporary interest in land and land policies in the context of development has
been triggered by a combination of factors. The persistence of poverty and inequality has
encouraged mainstream economists to problematize access to productive assets by the
rural poor. Perhaps the most important mainstream policy position that links land and
poverty is the one that is promoted by Hernando de Soto. De Soto (2000) believes that
land without clear private individual property rights is “dead capital,“ because it can-
not be used as a basis for guaranteeing financial transactions. Without financial inflow,
the rural economy will not get activated and grow. And the reality is that the majority
of land in developing countries does not have clear private individual property titles
(World Bank 2003). In order to transform this sleeping capital into active, financially
tradable instruments, nonprivate lands should be privately titled. Formalization of land
rights is deemed necessary and is thus widely promoted today. This is generally aimed
at instigating vibrant land markets. The resurging importance of land in the context of