Land for the People—A Vital Need Every where: In Latin America and the Caribbean, It's Now ‘a Prey to Hastening Ills,’ and Decay

Raymond E. Crist

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1983, vol. 42, issue 3, 275-290

Abstract: Abstract. Some of the author s land tenure and land use studies of the 1930s analyzed the basic dilemma of modern rural society, in which the traditional institution of private property in land (which, more than competing systems, helps to bring about the efficient use of the land), at the same time also frustrates innovation and enterprise and creates unstable social conditions. A resurvey of the situation in the same areas half a century later shows that the same fundamental problem still confronts us. Traditional agriculture should be made more productive, but land concentration in the hands of elite groups or large corporations spell bleak prospects for the small plot farmer and landless laborer. Case studies of selected Latin American countries show the political implications of how land scarcity is induced by a tiny upper crust, often supported in power by the military. Agribusiness emphasizes export crops rather than food crops for domestic consumption. The rich get richer. Many are absentee owners, living abroad. Wages are low, food prices are high. Peasants clannor unsuccessfully for land on which to grow some of their own food to help make ends meet. The Green Revolution, with its emphasis on expensive inputs, has failed to solve the problems of the small farmer. It is concluded that small farmers should be, and are being, encouraged because they are extremely efficient when their total yields are measured against input, and that only wider access to decent land or to decent jobs will give the dispossessed a chance to work their way out of extreme poverty and undernutrition.

Date: 1983
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