An agrarian reform is a process that aims to establish changes in the ownership and production methods of the land.
The verb "reform" indicates the action of redoing, modifying, amending or reforming something . The action and effect of reforming (or reforming oneself), on the other hand, is called reform .
Agrarian is that which pertains to or relates to the countryside . The term is also used to refer to the policy that defends the interests of the agricultural sector.
What is agrarian reform?
The fusion of these concepts in the term agrarian reform is used to refer to the set of economic, social, political and legislative measures that serve to modify the structure of land ownership and production . These reforms attempt to prevent the distribution of land from being in the hands of a few; because in that case, the owners ( landowners ) can speculate on its value and do not necessarily encourage its productive use.
The aim of agrarian reform is to replace the social class of large landowners with a class of medium and small farmers , each owning his own piece of land to work. To achieve this, it is necessary to change land ownership from a few large landowners to many small producers.
This can be done through expropriation (the landowners are stripped of their property without any compensation) or through compensatory mechanisms (the landowners are required to give up their land, but are given something in return). Most Latin American countries, in general, have promoted some form of agrarian reform throughout their history.
The aim of agrarian reform is to eliminate large estates and favour small and medium-sized farmers.
Its phases
The agrarian reform was made up of many phases, which took place at different times in history; in turn, within each phase there were various significant events . Broadly speaking, there are three important stages , which are:
First phase: Consequence of the bourgeois revolutions. After the revolutions that took place in Western Europe, there were many changes in societies that led to improvements in daily life. One of them was linked to the structure of land distribution , and several processes of agrarian reform took place. In this first phase, the peasants of the humble class opposed the hegemony of the landowners and managed to obtain land to exploit for themselves.
Second phase : End of the First World War . In Russia, a revolution led by peasants arose under the slogan "land, bread and freedom", which was a consequence of the one started earlier in other European countries such as England and France. And it spread to other countries.
Third phase : End of World War II. After the Second World War and the defeat of Japan, a series of revolts took place in this country, which led to the redistribution of land. This improved the quality of life of those people who were in conditions of extreme poverty; in addition, agriculture was boosted by the use of new machinery. Later, there were also agrarian revolutions in Italy, the United States and even several Latin American countries.
Agrarian reform today
Despite numerous attempts to improve land distribution around the world, problems related to agricultural property ownership continue to exist . Large areas of land are in the hands of landowners (generally powerful multinationals), and this leaves many people out of production and unable to access land on which to grow crops and make a living from their production.
However, land reform is still on track and activists seeking a more balanced life are increasingly calling for the rights of the majority. Could we say that we are in the fourth phase ? Will this be the last?