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
(The complete paper is available from the ANGOC network. Please contact ANGOC for copies.)
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 :
|
Vietnam, China, North Korea, Kampuchea |
|
Japan, China, South Korea |
|
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 world’s 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 |
| Asia | 56.8 |
0.50 |
| Bangladesh | 58.6 |
0.24 |
| India | 61.0 |
0.66 |
| Nepal | 93.3 |
0.30 |
| Pakistan | 48.4 |
0.84 |
| Sri Lanka | 46.4 |
0.52 |
| Cambodia | 71.2 |
0.98 |
| China | 68.5 |
0.27 |
| East Timor | 82.5 |
0.21 |
| Indonesia | 50.4 |
0.64 |
| Japan | 4.8 |
1.34 |
| Korea, North | 32.4 |
0.52 |
| Korea, South | 12.0 |
0.72 |
| Laos | 77.0 |
0.44 |
| Malaysia | 21.0 |
4.24 |
| Philippines | 41.4 |
0.78 |
| Thailand | 58.8 |
0.99 |
| 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. |
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.
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.