Land Policies and Land Reform

Many conflicts in the world are still more or less directly related to the issue of land. They can be grouped into three categories: insecure access to land or its resources; iniquitous distribution of land; and the claims of social and ethnic groups to exercise power over a territory. This leads to three central questions: the right to secure access by users; access to land resources to achieve optimum economic and social conditions; and recognition of cultural and historic diversity.

The following are some of the proposals made to achieve these objectives:
 Rehabilitate agrarian reform as a necessary and primordial government policy in every country where the distribution of land is very unequal.
 Systematically seek to improve agrarian reform procedures, in order not to miss opportunities to benefit from political contexts for their implementation. This requires that farmers’ organizations play an active role.
 Set up policies to regulate land and property markets where inequalities are less prevalent and where the improvement of agrarian structures is required to modernize practices in small farms.
 Decentralize most of the mechanisms for managing individual land rights, by linking land registration and national registration systems with local ones (municipalities, farmers’ organizations, organizations of indigenous peoples, etc.).
 Set up territorial management authorities (considered as public property). Take into account multiple rights and the management of natural resources (wood, water, biodiversity).

Contact

Réseau Agricultures paysannes, sociétés et mondialisation (APM)
FPH, 38, rue Saint-Sabin, 75011 Paris