Agrarian Reform 1952

By: EconomyWatch   Date: 21 April 2010

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The Agrarian Reform 1952 refers to a set of rules and regulations introduced in the year 1952, to protect the interests of worldwide peasant classes, as well as increase production in the agricultural sectors of different countries across the globe.

General introduction to the Agrarian Reform 1952:

Agricultural activities form a primary economic activity of a country. Increase in the productivity of this sector have significant contributions in the country's GDP growth, taking the nation towards financial affluence and independence. Development in the global agricultural is brought about through the formulation and implementation of reform programs from time to time, whenever there is a necessity for accelerating the overall activities in this sector.

Implementation of Agrarian Reform 1952 in various countries:
  • Egypt: The Egyptian land reform programs in the post-revolutionary era attempted to alter the practices of the existing land ownerships. Prior to the introduction of the 1952 Egyptian Agrarian Reforms, only a handful of 6% of the country's population owned 65% of the total Egyptian land. These land owners controlled the landed properties in an autocratic manner, charging maximum rents on them, which was 75% of the total revenues generated from rented agricultural lands. This made the lives of the Egyptian farmers miserable, being tremendously burdened under high land rents, debts and high interest rates.

    The provisions of the Egyptian Agrarian Reform program, implemented on 9th September, 1952 are as follows:

    • Reallocation of any plot of land which was owned by a person for an unlimited time span
    • Prohibiting each land owner of Egypt to have more than 200 feddans of land, with exceptions in case of people with 2 issues, who may own 300 feddans.
    • The Egyptian government was permitted to establish cooperatives in the interest of small peasants having less than five feddans of land.
    • All land leases were subjected to a minimum tenure of three years.
    • Restricting the rate of the rents strictly to seven times the total tax value of a piece of land
    • Labors engaged in the agricultural sectors were entitled to a minimum wage of 18 piastres, on an everyday basis.
  • Guatemala: There was promise for advocating the agrarian land reform plans in Guatemala, ever since when Jacobo Arbenz Guzman contested for the post of Guatemalan President. Otherwise maintaining economic affluence on regional level in areas like quarrying, manufacturing industries, agricultural exports and mining, the overall agricultural condition of the country was not in a very sound state. This was because there was a serious mis-allocation of the cultivable lands, which culminated in the prevalence of rural poverty on large-scales. When only 2% of the country's rural population were engaged in cultivation, it indicated utter impoverishment, malnutrition and other health-related problems. This was why agrarian reform was essential for bringing out the nation from such social problems.

The Arbenz's Agrarian Reform Law of Guatemala known as Decree 900, was approved by the Congress on 17th June 1952. Within its 2-year existence, the Law facilitated the reallocation of about 603,704 hectares of land to as many as 100,000 native families approximately. In fact, the Law improved the agricultural economy of Guatemala steadily between 1951 to 1954.

In spite of several benefits of the Law, it was subjected to criticism on ground that it was unstable in nature, fluctuating between the anti-communist stirrers and supporters of agrarian reform. Both these group of people claimed that the Agrarian Reform Law of Guatemala served as a mean by which Soviet Russia penetrated into the Western parts.

Apart from the above-mentioned countries, Agrarian Land Reform 1952 also affected the agricultural sectors of China, Latin America and Africa on extensive levels.

 

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