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Introductory note
This report has been prepared as a
briefing tool for participants to the WCARRD 20/20 Conference
(ANGOC: 6-7 October 1999, Tagaytay, Philippines). It summarizes
data from secondary & tertiary sources, and draws mainly from
studies previously prepared by Asian NGOs for their assessments.
CONTENTS
OVERVIEW 1: A Review of the
Peasants Charter (WCARRD)
OVERVIEW 2: Other UN-Related
International Agreements on Agrarian Reform
OVERVIEW 3: The Asian
Agrarian Context
OVERVIEW 4: Land Reform
Policies in Selected Asian Countries
OVERVIEW 5: A Review of Land
Reforms in Asia
OVERVIEW 6: Examining some
future agendas for agrarian reform in Asia
(The complete paper is available from the ANGOC
network. Please contact ANGOC for copies.)
OVERVIEW 3:
The Asian Agrarian Context
Overall agrarian structure
Majority of Asian countries
remain essentially agrarian.
Wide differences in agrarian
structure exist across, and within Asian countries .
Nevertheless, countries can be classified into three broad
categories, based on their dominant agrarian structures :
- Countries where
collectivization of agriculture has been
practiced, with equitable distribution of
resources and a large segment of the population
involved in production. Gradually being opened to
forces of the market.
|
Vietnam,
China, North Korea, Kampuchea |
- Countries that have
undergone agricultural modernization and some
level of land reforms, with a lesser segment of
the population directly involved in agriculture.
|
Japan,
China, South Korea |
- Countries where
traditional patterns exist with a feudal or
semi-feudal character, with lands held by
absentee owners or corporations and which are
increasingly exposed to forces of the market
& modernization. A large portion of the
population is involved in production, mostly in
subsistence agriculture.
|
most countries of South & Southeast
Asia |
South & Southeast Asia:
some essential features &
trends
- Poverty widespread (esp in
South Asia) & remains largely rural. Some 2/3 of the
worlds 800M in poverty in Asia.
- Agriculture remains the main
provider of employment
(21% to 93% in the various SA
& SEA countries)
Region/ Country
|
% of labor in agriculture(1997)
|
per capita arable land
available
(in
has., 96-97)
|
Asia |
56.8
|
0.50
|
Bangladesh |
58.6
|
0.24
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India |
61.0
|
0.66
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Nepal |
93.3
|
0.30
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Pakistan |
48.4
|
0.84
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Sri
Lanka |
46.4
|
0.52
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Cambodia |
71.2
|
0.98
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China |
68.5
|
0.27
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East
Timor |
82.5
|
0.21
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Indonesia |
50.4
|
0.64
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Japan |
4.8
|
1.34
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Korea,
North |
32.4
|
0.52
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Korea,
South |
12.0
|
0.72
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Laos |
77.0
|
0.44
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Malaysia |
21.0
|
4.24
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Philippines |
41.4
|
0.78
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Thailand |
58.8
|
0.99
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Vietnam |
68.6
|
0.25
|
- Highly complicated systems
of tenancy & sub-tenancy.
- remnants of colonial
& feudal systems
- sharecropping, wage
systems, leaseholds, labor tenancy, bonded labor,
family labor systems
- Land as determinant of power
relationships
- Gradual reduction in farm
size, due to:
- population density
& pressure; parcelling of landholdings
- competing land use
w/ urbanization & industrialization
- skewed land
ownership patterns
- "some ¾ of all
Asian farming households no longer have enough land at
their disposal to live at subsistence level."
(gtz, 1998)
- Options for expanding land
under cultivation increasingly limited, without affecting
ecological balance.
- Growing land disputes &
conflicts.
- Expansion from land to
resource conflicts (water rights; access to pastures,
fishing grounds & forestlands; homelots)
- Growing number of landless
& near-landless
- Complex & overlapping
legal systems
- conflicting
policies/ priorities on land
- state vs customary
laws; large numbers of indigenous populations
- Land ownership patterns:
"small & skewed" :
BANGLADESH |
26 per cent of agricultural lands is owned
by only 5% of landowners, and this class of owners hold a
little over three hectares each. On the other hand, the
majority (70 per cent) each own just a little over a
hectare of land (1.01 has.), and altogether own a mere 29
per cent of the country's agricultural land. |
INDIA |
Best characterized as smallholder
because of the number of its small-size farms. From 1961
to 1981 holdings of less than a hectare increased from 51
million to 81 million, or about a million and a half per
year. On the other hand, farms 10 hectares or more in
size did not increase. |
NEPAL |
67 per cent of the country's 10.15 million
farmers own an average of 0.29 hectare each and together
account for less than 18 per cent of total agricultural
land. On the other hand, the big landowners, who each
hold an average of 8.4 hectares, together control 37 per
cent of agricultural land. |
PHILIPPINES |
Characterized by the coexistence of small
peasant farms and large plantations. While only 3.4 per
cent of all farms are larger than 10 hectares, these
cover as much as a third of the total agricultural land
area. On the other hand, almost two-thirds of all farms
are less than three hectares in size and cover only 30
per cent of the total cultivalble area. The pattern looks
even more disproportional when land distribution by type
of crop planted is considered. This is due to the fact
that huge corporate plantations are involved in the
production of these commodities. Over half of all farms
(59%) are owner operated. However, share tenancy
continues to be prevalent, especially in rice and corn
farms, in spite of past reform measures. Owner operated
farms make up 61% of the total farm area, while 20% is
characterized by share tenancy arrangements. |
SRI
LANKA |
Over
80% of the land remains state property. Privately held
lands are found mostly in the densely populated South
Western sector of the country. Land owners of paddy lands
classified as follows: (1) those who own and operate
paddy land (owner-cultivators); (2) those who operate but
do not own paddy land (tenant farmers). Only 64% own and
operate paddy landholdings with an aggregate area of
819,000 acres, or 67.5 % of the total paddy area. In the Upper North provinces, over
50% of households have holdings of less than a hectare,
while 31 per cent own even less (more specifically, less
than 0.8 hectare) and are considered
"near-landless". In 1988 about three million
hectares, or 12.7 per cent of the country's agricultural
land were being farmed by tenant farmers.
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OVERVIEW 5:
A Review of Land Reforms in
Asia
Overall issues cited:
- Conflicting macro-economic
policies & priorities that conflict with objectives
of land/asset reform
- use &
exploitation of public concessions
- policy on foreign
ownership of land
- neglect &
development bias against agriculture
- Lack of political will:
- lack of legal
framework for pursuing reforms
- resistance by
political & economic interest groups
- non-implementation
of existing laws
- Lack of transparency &
participation; governance
- Land speculation &
market forces
- Conflicts of existing
policies & priorities with customary laws, rights,
access & use.
OVERVIEW 6:
Examining some future agenda
for agrarian reform in Asia
- Still addressing access to
land & land tenure security; landlessness
- Responding to growing need
for creating new opportunities for non-farm rural
employment
- Addressing growing issues of
resource tenure (land tenure à
to include asset reform & resource tenure
& access.
- "Internationalizing"
issues of land policy and agrarian reform.
- Linking land (tenure)
reforms with food security, poverty alleviation &
environmental objectives.
- Linking land (tenure)
reforms with economic development objectives.
- Building capacity
(empowerment) for resolving land conflicts esp at local
level.
- Addressing legal &
institutional reforms.
- Building local farmer/
community capacities for self-help.
- Examining & addressing
market forces that impact on land markets
- Addressing emerging issues
and making informed choices in agricultural technology
(rise of new seeds, patents, & new forms of
technological dependency or "technological
tenancy").
- Recognizing customary land
rights & customary law, within legal state systems.
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