Third Stage: Land Expropriation

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

34

According to Russell King, data on the land reform achievements are scarce and contradictory. However, the author provides some facts that could help us to understand the effects of the land reform under the Belaunde administration (King, 1977).

 Between 1964 and 1968, an approximately 2.7 million of hectares seems to be acquired, but in reality, only 300,000 hectares were distributed with 100,000 beneficiary families.

 The provision of title deeds for the tenants was also a problem. About 128,000 tenant families, from a total of 160,000 tenant families, applied for registration of lands, but only 55,000 families received provisional certificates of property rights, very few received permanent certificates.

 The majority of the occupied plots were very small areas of poor land, an average size of 6 hectares, which frequently created more minifundistas.

 Finally, many of the landlords dislodged their tenants to prevent any kind of claims from the tenant to have more secure and guaranteed rights under the new law.

4.2.2 The Land Reform under Velasco Government (1968-1975)

4.2.2.1 Third Stage: Land Expropriation

In 1968, a military party lead by Juan Velasco Alvarado took the power of the Peruvian government; and even though he was not directly involved in the agricultural conflict, decided to implement a more radical land reform. In 1969, the land reform of Velasco was enacted, which represented a continuation of the reform of Belaunde in 1964, but this time much stronger (Carroll, 1970). The coast was no more an exception for expropriation and the barriers for ownership implementation were quickly removed.

The limits of landholding size were different according to the region. In the coast, the landlords were allowed to have a land size up to 150 hectares for irrigated lands, 300

DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.IMAS.010.2018.A07

‧

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

35

hectares for non-irrigated lands and 1500 hectares for grazing lands. However, in the highlands and the jungle, the limits for the landlord were lower; they were allowed to have a land size between 30-55 hectares according to the local characteristics. The fact that the government allowed the plantations of the coast to maintain up to 150 hectares, was a representation of the government's desire to preserve the entrepreneurial spirit of the agricultural commerce. But the sugar plantations, owned by foreign enterprises, did not have any privilege this time and were totally expropriated from the northern coast.

In this sense, the government gave more emphasis in groups of operation for plantations and livestock ranches, whose economies of scale were more prone to suffer from the subdivision. (Eguren, 2009)

According to Chirinos (1975), in general terms, the Land Reform had the following objectives:

A. Increase the income of the peasant sector and to secure the labor stability. This objective is achieved through the participation of the profits of the new companies among the partners.

B. Guarantee social justice in the less favored sector of the peasantry, regulating the right to property, pointing out the limitations of the same based on social interest.

For this purpose, all forms of exploitation were banished. Those systems were still present in the Peruvian agriculture despite the existence of laws abolishing some of these systems from previous regimes.

C. Increase the production and productivity of the sector, ensuring the commercialization of the products obtained. The crisis situation of agriculture in Peru and Latin America moved the groups in power to try to increase the production of the sector to get rid of the dependence on food import. This concern to at least maintain production is evident with the direct control of the government,

DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.IMAS.010.2018.A07

‧

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

36

at the beginning of the process, for those products with high productivity such as the sugar plantations. This allowed not only to cover the internal market but also be able to bring foreign currency to the country.

D. One of the main objectives of the Agrarian Reform process was to favor peasant mobilization. The self-managed system implemented for the rural sector has as its main purpose to guarantee not only a salary according to the needs of the workers but also the possibility of making decisions in the company’s management, as well as taking responsibility for the implementation of the policies to follow. The idea of participation and not manipulation was one of the pillars not only for new companies in the rural sector but also in the rest of the sectors of the Peruvian economy. According to the author, this was the most important decision for the approach of a new society and also, logically, the riskiest. Having this scheme in mind, the diffusion and consolidation of CAPS (Agricultural Production Cooperatives) in the coast and SAIS (Agricultural Societies of Social Interest) in the highlands were encouraged as the models in line with the principles of participation.

E. The property rights of the old indigenous communities are guaranteed giving them, when they are part of a SAIS, the possibility of receiving surpluses from the efficiently organized production units. Historically, these communities had lost their lands at the expense of the expanding latifundia. This type of organization gave rise to the so-called Agricultural Societies of Social Interest (SAIS).

F. Finally, the law clearly states that it is intended to consolidate small and medium-sized property. The consolidation of small property (minifundios) centers its main problem in the existence of a dispersion of smallholdings, whose grouping is an extremely complicated work. The smallholding solution is mainly proposed in terms of land consolidation, the objective of which is to reunite small

DOI:10.6814/THE.NCCU.IMAS.010.2018.A07

‧

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

37

smallholdings into production units that are much more economically profitable and much more feasible to manage from a technological point of view.