Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
order to make their preexisting access to the forest land more formal and secure. This is
a distributive reform.
A handful of successful forest-land allocation experiences in Vietnam in recent years
can qualify in this category, whereas the more widespread (re)allocation of agricultural
land in Vietnam is also an example of this type of reform (see, e.g., Kerkvliet 2006).
These types of land can be alienated in favor of the peasant tillers, with a similar dis-
tributive effect as in the case of some formalization of land rights initiatives that actually
benefited the poor. Meanwhile, a government may purchase at market price a piece of
private land and then distribute this to the landless for free or for a minimal cost. This
type of transaction can, under certain conditions, qualify as distributive reform. The
postapartheid South African land reform is, arguably, an example, by the fact that ben-
eficiaries receive cash transfers from the government in order to purchase land (Lahiff
2007). Some past and present public-land resettlement programs, in theory and under
certain conditions, may qualify in this category.
Similar to the discussion under the redistributive type of reform, the landed prop-
erty rights that are distributed can be private, state, or community owned. The forms of
organizations of distributed landed property rights can be individual, group, or coop-
erative. The distributive type of reform, in general, is perhaps not as controversial or
conflictual as the redistributive type. This is because the key question here is more “who
gets what” and avoids taking lands from the landed classes (Fox 1993, 10). However, it
would be a serious mistake to assume that all reforms involving such lands are free of
conflict. Many so-called public lands are sites of persistent and heated struggles between
various social groups and classes to gain access to and control over the land resource
(Franco 2008).2 This is especially so when there is a perception by some elites that such
distributive reforms may actually erode some of their economic privileges, prestige, and
opportunities, whether real or perceived losses, as in some cases of commercial farmers
in southern Africa.
Non-(re)distribution
The third category is non-(re)distribution . The defining nature of this category is the
maintenance of the status quo, where the latter is a condition that is marked by ineq-
uity and exclusion in land-based social relations. Here, the most typical land policy is
“no land policy.” In settings where there are vast inequities and exclusion in land-based
social relations, a “no land policy policy” effectively means nonredistribution of
land-based wealth and power. In many other settings, a similar effect is created by hav-
ing a land policy, even a pro-poor land policy such as land reform, but then leaving the
policy dormant. Another example is the forcible evictions done by landlords, agribusi-
ness or real estate companies in potentially or actually contested landholdings to avoid
any forms of land and labor reforms. The post-apartheid farm dweller evictions in South
Africa are provide one example. However, there are also active land policies that are cat-
egorically non-(re)distributive. We now turn our discussion to these types.
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