Why agrarian reform is important

The offer of such services must be adapted to the demand. After setting up the necessary infrastructures, attention must also be paid to their correct management. Especially in the case of irrigation water, there is often the problem of reorganizing users and of adopting mechanisms to ensure a correct distribution of this resource so as to avoid misuse.

Concrete access to legal credit is another issue to be met and solved by agrarian reform programmes. Those who have received land must be guaranteed the possibility of obtaining modern inputs at reasonable prices. The beneficiaries of land redistribution do not usually have sufficient savings to purchase such inputs, and therefore have to resort to loans.

However, the high administrative cost of loans to small borrowers means that credit institutions are reluctant to grant them. The only alternative for such farmers is, therefore, recourse to the informal credit sector, with all the costs and risks entailed. With a view to avoiding such risks, initiatives that promote the establishment of local co-operative banks should be encouraged.

Programmes for an effective agrarian reform need to include support for the credit demands of the new farm units born of the reform. Steps should be envisaged that encourage the offer of complementary forms of guarantee and reduce the handling costs of credit operations.

Credit must be facilitated and encouraged for the various forms of association of the ventures born of the reform in view of the joint management of production services, joint purchase of inputs and joint marketing of produce. Alongside the establishment of services and infrastructures of direct interest for farm production, agrarian reform programmes must also envisage large-scale investment in health, education, public transportation and the supply of drinking-water.

In the rural areas of poor countries, these social services and infrastructures are seriously deficient in both quantity and quality.

Their development prospects are poor owing to the fact that the population of these areas has little ability to influence political choices and that a major part of the costs would have to be met either directly or indirectly — in other words, through some kind of taxation — by large landowners. These services are fundamental for a modern way of life, and are also an indispensable component and factor in the growth of material well-being.

They are therefore a key factor in sustainable development. Their utility is not confined to farmers and their families, but benefits the entire population by creating the conditions for a differentiation in production activities, a growth in overall locallyproduced income, and a consequent stemming of the rural exodus.

The dependable provision of these services is therefore a necessary condition for the battle against rural poverty and for containing the economic and social costs of urbanization.

In the context of agrarian reform, every effort must therefore be made to ensure that public services and infrastructures of public utility in the rural areas are as accessible, available, acceptable and economic as possible. This applies particularly to health: access to basic health structures and hospitals, widespread health education and availability of simple, inexpensive remedies are vital in order to reduce mortality and morbidity. With regard to services, maximum priority must be given to steps aimed at guaranteeing equal access to elementary schooling and the extension of education to secondary and higher levels for both young men and women.

Under such conditions, education and professional training would not only offer each individual the means for maximum development of his or her own potential, but also become determining factors in bringing about the change in attitudes and behaviour needed to face the complexity of the modern-day world without excessive costs. The idea that education is a purely consumer expense and not a social investment would thus be overcome. Policies intended to facilitate access to modern technology and public services must pay special attention to the crucial position of women in farm production and the food economies of developing countries.

While there are considerable variations from place to place, women in these countries supply over half the labour used in agriculture. Moreover, full responsibility for producing the food needed to support the family usually falls on their shoulders. Despite this, they are widely marginalised by severe forms of economic and social injustice. Even agrarian reform programmes consider women in terms of their domestic work and not as agents of productive action.

Laws favour men in conferring the right to land ownership, and the educational system tends to emphasize boys' training rather than that of girls. In view of this situation, if agrarian reform programmes are to be successful, it is vital to ensure women of an effective right to land, with concrete attention to their needs on the part of technical assistance services, fuller and better schooling and easier access to credit.

This will improve the quality of their work, reduce their vulnerability to changes in technology, in the economy and in society, and increase alternative opportunities for employment. Agrarian reform programmes must pay close attention to the decisive role of concerted action in the launching and development of the farm units created by redistribution of land. These farms are faced with complex problems, especially as concerns marketing. The fact that large numbers of people fulfill the necessary conditions to aspire to the allocation of land means that the vast majority of the units will be too small to allow the profitable use of certain techniques, for example those that make tilling less burdensome.

Such farms also find it hard to obtain the main inputs needed, because there is often no local outlet, and when such items are available, they are very expensive. However, their worst problems are related to the marketing of their produce. In most cases, sales are controlled by a few local traders, or are in fact impossible — as is the case with new products, especially those intended for processing — because there is no on-the-spot demand.

In such a situation, co-operation is an instrument of solidarity capable of offering effective solutions. Depending on needs, its various forms — service, purchasing, processing and marketing co-operatives — allow a fuller use of machinery and an effective concentration of the demand for inputs and the supply of produce to the market.

This in turn gives rise to small-scale economies and forms of market power that make the associated farms more competitive and can also open up new outlets for their produce.

Co-operation represents a precious instrument to allow both private and co-operative enterprises born of the reform to change the composition of their own production, and in particular to produce items for export without harming the local economy. It is also very necessary for any agrarian reform to include the promotion and support for the establishment of local co-operative banks intended to grant loans to low-income families and women in order to support farming, craft activities and even consumption.

Considerable experience shows that such small-scale banks can be an effective instrument in strengthening the new enterprises and in the struggle against poverty. Agrarian reform not only helps to solve the problem of latifundia, but is also very valuable in supporting policies which ensure that the rights of indigenous populations are recognized and respected.

The very close relationship between land and the models of culture, development and spirituality of these populations means that agrarian reform is a decisive component of the systematic and co-ordinated plan of action that governments must draw up in order to protect the rights of indigenous populations and guarantee respect for their specific identity. An agrarian reform must allow for the identification of equitable and rational ways of dealing with the problem of restoring land traditionally occupied by indigenous populations to them, especially that taken away through various forms of violence or discrimination, sometimes very recently.

In this case, the reform has to lay down criteria for recognizing the lands they occupied and exactly how their use is to be restored to them, guaranteeing effective protection for their rights of ownership and possession. The reform must ensure their access to production and social services, thus giving them the means for pursuing the development of their land and benefitting from treatment equal to that received by other sectors of the population.

In a word, the agrarian reform must help indigenous communities in various ways: to protect and reconstruct the natural resources and ecosystems on which their survival and well-being depend; to preserve and develop their identity, culture and interests; to uphold their aspirations for social justice; and to ensure an environment that allows for active participation in the social, economic and political life of the country. Traditional systems of land possession based on common ownership — a form of ownership unsuited to the use of modern inputs and technological innovation — tend gradually to shift to individual ownership as agriculture develops.

There are valid reasons to expect a policy of individual assignment of land ownership to develop also in the case of indigenous peoples. Agrarian reform must, on the one hand, guarantee indigenous communities access to productive and social services that they judge suited to their social organization and their view of environmental issues, and, on the other hand, provide a fresh orientation for economic and social factors that can otherwise be drawbacks.

A major commitment is required of the State, for the reform entails changes in the bodies, institutions and regulations that often form the basis of a nation's political, economic and social organization.

In most cases, this commitment is realised with the development of four main lines of action on the institutional level:. If farmers' economic rights are not respected, this inevitably has adverse effects on market mechanisms and the whole economy.

As an instrument of a developing agriculture, agrarian reform directly touches on the spheres of competence and responsibility of many international organizations. When these organizations define the development models they intend to promote, they must take care that such models are suited to the needs and problems of the various countries. It is therefore important to make sure that concern for reducing international debt — often translated into the promotion of a predominantly export-oriented agriculture — does not lead developing countries to pursue policies that will cause serious deterioration in public services, especially education, and an increase in social problems.

Agrarian reform requires those organizations responsible for promoting international trade to pay special attention to relations among commercial policies, income distribution and the satisfaction of families' basic needs. Development of trade usually has a positive effect on a country's economic growth, by expanding the market, stimulating efficiency, and producing new skills and know-how. However, in certain situations it can also have detrimental effects on the living conditions of the economically disadvantaged.

This happens, for example, if the increase in the production of foodstuffs for export leads to a reduction in the supply of food for domestic consumption and an increase in its price.

This has a negative effect because the products exported are less labour-intensive than those consumed locally, with the result that employment is penalized. It can happen that small farmers be penalized on two fronts.

In the first place, the obstacles they run up against prevent their access to the necessary inputs to grow export crops, so that they cannot benefit from their advantages. In the second place, the development of exports brings about rises in certain costs of agricultural production and in the price of land, and such increases make the production of traditional crops less financially viable. However, this series of effects is not due exclusively to the logic of commercial exchanges.

They are also the direct result of a concentration of land in a few hands, of a widespread social inequality, and of the inadequacy of technico-administrative assistance services for small producers. International organizations obviously have to keep the overall situation carefully in mind when drawing up their own intervention strategies, because of its negative consequences on the fight against poverty and hunger. The Church is preparing for the new millennium through a process of spiritual conversion that has its central inspiration in the Great Jubilee of the Year This exceptional ecclesial event should prompt all Christians to make a serious examination of conscience on their witness in the present and also to a fuller awareness of the sins of the past, "recalling those times in history when [Christians] In treating the subject of an equitable redistribution of land, central to the jubilee tradition in the Bible, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace wants to focus the attention of all on one of the most squalid and painful spectacles — that of the shared responsibility, including that of many Christians, for grave forms of injustice and exclusion, and the acquiescence of too many of them in the violation of fundamental human rights.

In many contexts, acquiescence in evil, which is a troubling sign of spiritual and moral degeneration not for Christians alone, is producing a disturbing cultural and political void which makes people incapable of change and renewal.

While social relations are not changing, and justice and solidarity remain absent and invisible, the doors of the future are closing, and the destiny of many peoples remain locked into an increasingly uncertain and precarious present. The spirit of the Jubilee urges us to cry "Enough!

By calling attention to the special and essential significance of justice in the biblical message — that of protection of the weak and of their right, as children of God, to the wealth of creation — we strongly hope that, as in the biblical experience, the jubilee year will help us today to restore social justice through a distribution of land ownership carried out in a spirit of solidarity in social relations.

The light of Christ — image of the invisible God whose fatherly heart urges him to go in search of all persons, his cherished possession — gives us strength and throws light on our difficult path. A deeper understanding and reasoned application of the guidelines of the Church will be of practical help to all humanity in creating the conditions for rejoicing in the salvation to which they are called by God's grace, and in addressing a great prayer of thanksgiving and praise to God.

Let us invoke the intercession of Mary, Mother of our Redeemer, and the Star who is a sure guide for the steps of all Christians who abandon the erroneous paths of evil and obey the promptings of the Spirit, who is leading them toward the Lord, so that they can share in the intimate life of God and be able to call him "Abba!

Most Rev. The resources of the land are also generally under-utilised. This process is a counter-image and consequence of that of the concentration and misappropriation of land. In his Radio Message for Pentecost , Pius XII spoke of the right to material goods: "Every man, as a living being endowed with the power of reason, has by nature the fundamental right to use the material goods of the earth, although it is left to human will and the specific legislation of different peoples to control the details of its practical implementation.

This individual right cannot be in any way suppressed, even by other certain and undisputed rights over material goods": no. He takes all these things over by making them his workbench. On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone": John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, no.

It becomes illegitimate, however, when it is not utilized or when it serves to impede the work of others, in an effort to gain a profit which is not the result of the overall expansion of work and the wealth of society, but rather is the result of curbing them or of illicit exploitation, speculation or the breaking of solidarity among working people.

With these in mind we should exert every effort to realize one or the other, as far as circumstances permit": ibid. With a view to making employment possible for all, the State must promote a proper organization of work through "a just and rational co-ordination, within the framework of which the initiative of individuals, free groups and local work centres and complexes must be safeguarded, keeping in mind what has been said above with regard to the subject character of human labour": ibid.

In this case, common ownership guarantees access to land for all the members of the community, even the poorest; it encourages peasant farmers to preserve the productive capacity of the soil they till; and, unlike what very often happens in the case of individual ownership, it means that small farmers cannot be forced to sell their very modest plots of land.

In other words, common ownership helps to avoid extreme poverty and the creation of a mass of landless people such as those often found in areas dominated by latifundia.

The document briefly presents: — a description of the process by which the ownership of land becomes concentrated in latifundia in regions where it is not fairly distributed; — the principles that should inspire solutions to this highly problematic issue, based on the message of the Bible and the Church; — a call for an effective agrarian reform, an indispensable condition for a future of greater justice.

Green stands for fertility and productivity while yellow represents hope and a golden harvest of agrarian reform beneficiaries who are the recipients of the services provided by department via CARP. Both colors imply the economic growth and sound rural development can be achieved through agrarian reform.

They are two frontline service workers of the agency who are tasked to communicate the messages of DAR to its farmer-beneficiaries and the rest of the Filipinos. They represent the thousands of employees across the nation who are of service to the landless farmers.

The project is designed to accelerate the subdivision of collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award and generate individual titles on lands awarded under the CARP. We expect that this will encourage them to invest in their property and adopt better technologies for greater productivity and higher incomes. With individual land titles, beneficiaries will have greater access to credit and financing, as well as government assistance.

The Philippines has an extensive history of inequitable land tenure. However, the processes of land occupation and co-operative formation have often been difficult, conflict-ridden, and, in some cases, divisive.

The main objective of the study was to examine the interplay of peasant mobilization, agrarian reform, and cooperative formation in Brazil from to The study used an integrated neo-Marxist and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods SRLs theoretical approach supported by six years of fieldwork in three Brazilian states. The study gathered a total of hours of taped interviews with academics, peasants, students, workers, government officials, church leaders, and co-op members.

The study intentionally avoided collecting data through written questionnaires due to the high level of illiteracy among the landless peasants. The interviews were not highly structured because such a format is neither familiar nor comfortable for most Brazilian peasants.

Landless peasants have a strong oral tradition. The interviews had a looser, free-flowing format and sometimes lasted for several hours.