LANDLESSNESS AND RURAL POVERTY IN LATIN AMERICA : CONDITIONS, TRENDS AND POLICIES AFFECTING INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT

This report argues that while small farmers in Latin America are generally poor, the 65% of Latin America"s rural population who are landless and near-landless (LNL) are destitute. To support this premise, the report outlines the dimensions, sources, and trends in Latin American rural poverty, who the LNL are, and what can be done to mitigate their hardship. The LNL -- agricultural and non-agricultural rural workers, marginal and tenant farmers, and the non-sedentary poor -- earn low pay, have few job opportunities, and lack assets as well as access to public goods and services. Their plight has two root causes. The first is institutional rigidities which concentrate resources in the hands of large producers, even in countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay where arable land is abundant; or which ban the formation of migrant and tenant interest groups as occurs in Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The second main cause is the increasing commercialization of agriculture promoted by governments to provide cheap domestic food and exports as in Brazil, Guatemala, and Bolivia; or, again as in Brazil, by the emergence of large concerns and foreign agribusinesses which eliminate the small trader and producer. The increasing displacement of labor due to farm mechanization also contributes to the plight of the LNL. All of these factors have led to an accelerating proletarianization of the rural worker. In this process, traditional patron-client relationships have broken down, weakening the old forms of vertical and horizontal solidarity among the poor and opening the door to their exploitation by political and economic middlemen. To reverse this situation, policies are needed to raise the price of LNL-produced goods and services and preserve more of their real income and to develop income-generating employment programs on their behalf. The report concludes by recommending further research in areas such as employment, seasonal migration, commercial farming, and labor laws. Country profiles are appended.