Land distribution in Latin America is the most unequal in the world, and Colombia has the worst land inequality in this region. In 2016, 84% of small Colombian farms had control/owned just 4% of the productive farming land and the top 1% of the largest farms in Colombia own 81% of Colombian land. This is bad because the small farms and farmers have no legal control or ownership over their land and therefore there is always a risk of their land being taken away from them. In addition, the farmers’ lack of land titles in rural Colombia is not only an issue of poverty and underdevelopment, but it also contributes to the illegal cultivation of coca and it helps the guerrilla movement of FARC and other organizations.
FARC was created in a time when a lot of Colombia’s farm land was under the control of the guerrillas and peasants could use the land to grow their crops in exchange for paying tribute to the guerrillas. By doing this it helped FARC to use this land to cultivate coca and also caused farmers to settle on land that they did not own and create farms that could and would be taken away from them by the guerrilla organizations. Eventually, farmers settled into their land a little more securely and permanently, but still without land titles.
The current government of President Iván Duque is committed to increasing the number of rural Colombians that own the plots of land they live on and is ensuring that in this process they both own and can document that they own the land. They expect to end the year with 50,000 land titles granted which would be the most a Colombian administration has ever done.
Owning land is important because it gives these poor farmers wealth and security. This is because they own land and now have property and they also own the land they make their money on. When these rural farmers have official land titles for their land they are less likely to give their land to FARC or help them out because they are now legally responsible for any legal and illegal activity that occurs on this land.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/opinion/colombia-land-reform.html
https://www.newamerica.org/future-land-housing/blog/challenges-rural-land-reform-colombia/
