LANDLESSNESS AND NEAR-LANDLESSNESS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES; ANALYTICAL SURVEY

It is an exploratory review of the literature on this subject and by no means a definitive study. In the developing countries covered by this report, the majority of rural households consist of landless workers or marginal cultivators whose holdings are too small or too poor in quality to enable them to earn a subsistence livelihood from their land. However, the authors found great diversities between and within countries. Therefore, they grouped landless and near-landless people into categories based on occupation, access to productive resources, and security of income earning opportunities. The three major categories are laborers and workers, cultivators, and pastoralists and nomads. The authors also classified countries and their rural areas into four major types according to population density and land tenure relationships. The first type combines heavy population pressure on arable land with privately owned and operated holdings of moderate size, seldom exceeding ten hectares of irrigated land. The second type is characterized by very large holdings on the more fertile lands operated by landlord families or commercial firms which dominate the rural areas economically and politically. In the third type of area there is a gross sufficiency of land to meet present demands, but with very low productivity per acre or per unit of labor because of weak soils, inadequate technologies, poor infrastructure, low rainfall, and insufficient production inputs. Fourth type areas are pastoral societies usually organized on a tribal or extended lineage or kinship basis. After the introduction, the sources and trends, the dynamic factors that account for and contribute to landlessness are summarized. Conditions surrounding the lives of the landless are discussed. The policy and program measures that governments have attempted in order to alleviate such conditions are also identified. Under each policy category, action measures are suggested which international development agencies might consider.