Land reform agricultural economics in Britain

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Types of reform

Whether it is called land reform or agrarian reform, the operational concept covers five main types of reform, classified according to whether they deal with land title and terms of holding, land distribution, the scale of operation, the pattern of cultivation, or supplementary measures such as credit, marketing, or extension services.

Reforms concerned with the title to land and the terms of holding reflect a transition from tradition-bound to formal and contractual systems of landholding. Their implementation involves property surveys, recording of titles, and provisions to free the landholder from restrictions or obligations imposed by tradition. Property surveys are conducted wherever land is held by a tribe or clan or where reallocation of cultivable land routinely follows tradition. In these situations the landholder may lack the incentive to improve the land because the right of disposal belongs to the tribe, clan, or feudal lord, as in medieval Europe and in parts of present-day Africa and the South Pacific islands.

Such reform affects landholding in at least three ways: it may increase security of tenure and hence incentives; it may reorganize the system of inheritance in favour of offspring; and it may bring land onto the market so that land transactions become possible. This reform, however, has little immediate effect on the scale of operation, but it does facilitate future land concentration and fragmentation. In countries where the terms of holding and tenancy are regulated by tradition, reform may seek to convert tenancy into a contractual agreement that offers some protection to the tenant and more security and incentive to improve the land and advance technology, as in Japan, India, and Pakistan.

The most common type of reform involves the redistribution of land titles from one individual to another, from individuals to a group or community at large, or from a group to individuals. The land of one landlord may be redistributed to many individuals, as in Egypt, Iran, or Ireland. Or the land of individuals may be reallocated in favour of the community at large by abolishing private ownership, as in Cuba and China. Or, again, public land may be distributed to individuals, as in various parts of Latin America.

The impact of redistribution on the scale of operations and on marketability of the land depends on the form it takes and the restrictions attached to it. If the redistributed farm was previously operated as a unit, its division means fragmentation and reduction of scale; however, if it was operated in fragments by tenants, transfer of title to the tenants would not affect the scale. The final results depend on the measures taken to prevent adverse effects.

Land-tenure reform, of course, can improve the scale of operations by enlarging the farm or by reducing it. Enlargement applies when the holding is increased in size, either by adding to it or by consolidating its fragmented parts. Farm consolidation involves reallocation of the total farmland within a region by land exchange, sale, or lease such that no one loses and all gain by increasing efficiency. The scale of operations may be increased by pooling resources, as in farm cooperatives and collectives that offer facilities otherwise inaccessible to a small farm.

An equally common approach is to divide large, extensively cultivated farms into smaller and more intensively cultivable units. Reduction of the scale, however, has potential problems since it may result in excessively small units or in the breakup of efficiently run farms.

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