BOLIVIA:
Requiem for Land in the
Hands of the Few
By
Franz Chávez
LA PAZ, (IPS) -
Bolivian President Evo
Morales announced new
regulations and
financing for a land
reform law aimed at
expropriating idle or
ill-gotten land in the
hands of large estate
owners in eastern and
northeastern Bolivia and
redistributing it to
indigenous farmers.
The era of the
latifundium or large
landed estate seems to
be coming to an end in
South America’s poorest
country, where Morales
proclaimed an "agrarian
revolution" Thursday on
the 54th anniversary of
the enactment of the
first law that
distributed land to
peasant farmers.
Morales -- Bolivia’s
first-ever indigenous
president -- announced
the country’s "second
era" of agrarian reform
in Ucureńa, in the
central department
(province) of Cochabamba
in a speech that once
again declared his
leftist government’s
commitment to the
ongoing struggle for
land and in defence of
the country’s natural
resources by Bolivia’s
native majority.
The programme he
announced will focus on
the redistribution of
land, the mechanisation
of small-scale
agriculture, the
strengthening of a
"People’s Trade Treaty"
signed with Cuba and
Venezuela, and
agricultural production
in line with
environmental
conservation standards.
He also asked his
cabinet to rename Aug. 2
"Agrarian Revolution
Day" instead of "Day of
the Indian", as it has
been commemorated since
the first land reform
law went into effect in
1953.
The president accused
agribusiness interests
and large landholders in
tropical areas of the
departments of Santa
Cruz, Beni and Pando in
eastern and northeastern
Bolivia of fomenting a
development model based
on the accumulation of
profits with no respect
for the environment.
Government spokesman
Alex Contreras said the
concentration of land in
Bolivia has reached an
extreme, and cited the
case of 14 influential
families who own a total
of three million
hectares.
According to a report by
the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP),
just 100 families own 25
million hectares, while
two million small
farmers have access to
only five million
hectares.
Indigenous demands for
access to farm land have
been resisted by
economic power groups in
Santa Cruz, Beni and
Pando. Agrarian reform
is one of the issues
that has generated the
most debate in the
constituent assembly
currently rewriting the
Bolivian constitution.
Bolivia, a country of
9.2 million people, is
basically divided
between the western
highlands, home to the
impoverished indigenous
majority, and the
relatively wealthy
eastern provinces, which
account for most of the
country's natural gas
production, industry and
gross domestic product.
Much of the population
of eastern Bolivia is
made up of people of
largely European
(primarily Spanish)
descent.
In Bolivia’s western
altiplano region, many
rural families have less
than one hectare of
land, while in the
eastern and northeastern
lowlands, a single cow
often has five hectares
on which to graze. "I
think you have to be a
cow to have land," joked
Morales.
The president of the
Chamber of Industry and
Commerce of Santa Cruz,
Gabriel Dabdoub, told
IPS in La Paz that the
new regulations for the
land reform law
generated uncertainty
among the business and
agribusiness sectors and
would discourage private
sector investment.
Dabdoub called for a
continuation of dialogue
between the government
and the Agricultural
Chamber of the East (CAO)
after talks broke off
and large producers in
the area threatened to
raise the prices of
basic food items by 40
percent and cause
shortages, as a result
of the implementation of
the new land reform
regulations.
"We do not know how to
take advantage of
opportunities for
production," said
Dabdoub. He added that
there are businesspeople
interested in investing
in Bolivia, but argued
that the absence of
favourable conditions
for private capital
blocks them from moving
forward with their
ideas.
Deputy minister of land
Alejandro Almaraz said
there was no risk of
price hikes or food
shortages, and said the
new regulations would
streamline the land
reform process and make
it more transparent.
Representatives of
labour and indigenous
organisations will also
be closely monitoring
the process, to prevent
corruption, he added.
Previous administrations
handed formal land
titles out for 10
dollars per hectare over
the last decade, but the
current government has
reduced the cost of the
procedure to one dollar
per hectare, said
Morales.
In addition, the
paperwork will now only
take six months, and
disputes over property
lines and the
distribution of plots of
land can be resolved by
local indigenous
communities, whose
agreements and decisions
will be backed by the
government, said Almaraz.
Last year, the
government estimated
that it could recover
some 14 million hectares
of idle land for
distribution to rural
families who are
landless or have an
insufficient quantity of
farmland on which to
make a living.
Arable land currently
comprises between two
and three percent of
Bolivia’s total land
area of nearly 110
million hectares, while
permanent pastures
represent 24 percent.
Under the new system,
after rural property has
been designated as
unproductive or as
having been illegally
obtained through shady
purchase agreements, it
can be "recuperated" and
redistributed, with
priority given to local
residents of the areas
in question, Howard
Arroyo, a legal adviser
to the National
Institute of Land Reform
(INRA), told IPS.
But the land will be
granted to groups rather
than individual owners,
thus eliminating the
distribution of large
extensions of farmland
to a few individuals.
The new system
specifically declares an
end to the latifundium,
said Arroyo.
According to the legal
expert, the history of
agrarian reform in
Bolivia includes land
grants of up to 400,000
hectares to a single
individual, and not even
for the purpose of
farming. In many such
cases, the land
redistributed by the
government was sold off
by the new owners, for a
profit.
The previous land reform
system did not focus on
verifying whether large
extensions of land with
agricultural potential
were actually fulfilling
a socioeconomic
function, said Arroyo.
But under the new
regulations, land that
has been left
unproductive is subject
to "recuperation" and
redistribution by the
government.
A National Agrarian
Council made up of
representatives of the
central government and
agricultural authorities
will oversee compliance
with the new
regulations, while
provincial councils
comprised of delegates
from associations of
small farmers,
indigenous people,
women, larger producers
and ranchers will
exercise what the
Morales administration
describes as "social
control."
Each public official
involved in verifying
the legality of land
titles or determining
whether property has
been left idle will have
the obligation to hand
over any information
requested by the "social
control" committees, to
ensure the transparency
of the process and avoid
corruption.
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