Oped»
The promised land
KATHMANDU, JUN 16 -
Controversies have always been hindering the land reform process and ultimately the process of rural development, sustainable agriculture and food security. Return of seized land and property is at the top of the list these days, and this issue is also connected to the resignation of the prime minister, formation of a new national government and drafting of the constitution.
This shows how land reform is connected with power. Civil society has raised the question of social transformation and justice together with the return of seized land and property. It should not be seen from a narrow perspective of the Western concept of human and property rights. This challenge can be changed into an opportunity by listening to the views of the landless tenants. In the history of political change, the landlords or rich people have never represented the general class, and they have always advocated property and human rights of the rich and not of the poor and excluded class. This has also been a source of conflict in Nepal throughout its history.
Land reform has always been a controversial issue in Nepal; and the political parties, economists, social activists and the general people do not have a clear position on it. History shows that those who are in the circle of power advocate the status quo and the others advocate transformative land reform. As land reform has always remained a controversial issue in Nepal, it could not gain the experience of land reform although the issue had been debated before 1950, and the slogan “land to the tillers” has been heard since then.
Land reform has been understood as confiscating one’s land and giving it to another. It has not been understood as an issue of rural development, sustainable agriculture, food security, employment generation and strengthening of rural industry. We have not been allowed to critically understand land security as a means of food security and social justice of all segments of the population. Land reform never analysed the perspective of social justice and agriculture productivity which is central to poverty alleviation in Nepal.
Land reform is also connected to the issue of property rights which has been brought forward by Westerners. In South Africa, the blacks could come to power only after there was an agreement that the property rights of white landowners would be protected. This means that the whites who controlled more than 87 percent of the country’s arable land were able to maintain their property rights while the majority poor black people remained deprived. Since the whites controlled the land, they controlled labour, and eventually power and the economic system. So there was no transformation as the people had expected. What happened was that government simply passed from one elite group to another from a different race.
In the context of Nepal, 3 percent of the population holds 40 percent of the arable land, i.e., this rich segment controls 40 percent of the productive property and natural resources. If we cannot make this equitable at this stage through equitable redistributive land reform, there will be no economic transformation, and ultimately no food security for the poor and vulnerable groups of people. Land reform is also directly connected with food production and equitable distribution, and the issue is that the poor do not get food while they are the ones who produce it.
In Nepal, land is power, prestige, social status and security of livelihood, food, house and employment. Therefore, only land reform can give justice to the poor people and help them come out of the poverty trap. This gives a clear message that the economist’s perceptive should be Nepal-specific and not be a blanket view on a global scale. Land reform sometimes confronts the long entrenched view that large-scale, commercial agriculture is more productive. This principle argues that reform fragments land into unproductive small units. However, international experience shows that small plots yield more. Vietnam’s experience shows that small plot holders are producing more than big plot holders. Because of this, Vietnam has been transformed into a food exporting country from a food importing country. When farmers own and farm the land, they work hard and efficiently as opposed to external farmers who do not farm in a sustainable way.
Another controversy is tenure reform or genuine land reform. International studies show that tenure reform will not help to change power relations. We say that poverty is an unjust relation of power. If there is no change in power relations, how can we alleviate poverty? So for poverty alleviation, we need genuine land reform rather than only tenure reform. Land reform is necessary for everyone to have adequate food as soon as possible and to meet the pledge made by world leaders at the 1996 World Food Summit to halve the number of food insecure people by 2015 as the first step to ensuring
food for all.
Given Nepal’s socio-economic context, land reform is one of the fundamental aspects of addressing the existing deprivation, impoverishment and conflict. Land reform is also connected with the restructuring of Nepal, and real transformation of the country is impossible unless there is land reform. The stark reality is that Nepal has been facing an acute shortage of food and there has been a marginal decrease in farm production. Ownership of productive land and agrarian reform polices are the key institutional issues related to feeding hungry people, increasing agricultural productivity, addressing the prolonged problem of poverty and establishing peace.
(Basnet is a land rights activist)
jagat.basnet@gmail.com
Posted on: 2010-06-17 10:45
Headlines
Advertisements
