Food, Justice, and Land - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 260

violently evicted from their lands by transnational companies supported by the cen-
tral state's police and military apparatus. The dispossessed people continue to live
around the commercial plantations. They employed non-Muslin workers coming
from other parts of the country. The latter became the beneficiaries of contemporary
land reform. Hence, although the land-reform policy was radically pro-poor in the
context of the latter, it has at the same time legitimized the injustice to the original
occupants of the land.
5. Gender-sensitive . A pro-poor land policy is one that, in the minimum, does not
undermine, and in the maximum, promotes the distinct right of women for their own
land rights—as peasants or rural laborers and as women. In many instances, women
have access to land resources distinct to men within their households, such as by being
a farmworker, a (part-time) farmer, firewood gatherer, and so on. These links to land
entitle them to their distinct land rights (Agarwal 1994, Kabeer 1999), both as peasants
and as women. However, it is well known now that previous land policies, especially
land reform policies, excluded women. This is shown in the studies by, among others,
Deere (1985) and Deere and León (2001) in the context of Latin America, Agarwal
(1994) in the context of South Asia, Whitehead and Tsikata (2003) for a general dis-
cussion in African context, and Razavi (2003, 2009) for a general overview world-
wide. Recent land policies started to incorporate women into the agenda. Where it
has been done, implementation is a major challenge, as in the case of South Africa
(Walker 2003).
6. Ethnic-sensitive . Similar to that of the issue of gender, a pro-poor land policy is
one that, in the minimum, does not undermine, and in the maximum, promotes the
distinct right of ethnic groups (and other race- and caste-related groupings) to their
territorial claims, often as peasants and as a people. Previous land policies, especially
land reforms, have been generally ethnic-blind. Land policies of colonization or pub-
lic land resettlements as well as extractive industry policies have, in varying extents,
encroached into the territories of indigenous peoples, undermining the access to and
control over land resources and territories by indigenous peoples (Scott 1998, 49).
Many contemporary land-oriented violent conflicts have some degrees of ethnic or
indigenous peoples dimension to them. It is important to be conscious of this social
fault-line.
7. Productivity-increasing . A pro-poor land policy contributes to increasing land
and labor productivity. This means, land policy leads to more intensive land and
labor use after implementation. One of the arguments for or against land reform is
the question of land and labor productivity in the context of scale and productiv-
ity. The debate goes on, without a decisive conclusion, with one position maintain-
ing that small-scale farms are more efficient and productive than large-scale farms,
whereas the other camp argues that large farms are more efficient and productive
than small family farms (see, Griffin, et al. 2002, as well as Byres 2004 and Sender
and Johnston 2004). These two competing perspectives largely shape the debates
about whether to carry out land reform, how and with what development orienta-
tion. The debate is not limited to land reform. Our point regarding this matter is