Land Reform In Algeria

History of Land reform in Algeria:

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History of Land reform in Algeria:

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The government laid stress on irrigation as well as various agricultural activities in Algeria during the 1990s. This reminded of the importance of agriculture when Algeria was not independent. Majority of the arable land belonged to the Europeans prior to independence. After Algeria gained independence, the newly appointed government took control of all land as a precursor of land reform in Algeria. The French and other foreigners used to irrigate the land taken over by the Algerian government. However, legally, the land still belonged to the foreigners. The foreigners continued to be the legal owners of the land, when the Algerian government in the year 1963, decided that land would now belong to the government. So, ownership of land was transferred to the Algerian government. The government in Algeria distributed land to some of the freedom fighters as reward.

Approximately, 2.7 million hectares was taken over by the government. The land was converted into state farms and was managed by a committee of workers. The committee was entitled to receive a major chunk of the fund assigned for various agricultural activities.

The agrarian reform introduced:

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With the introduction of agrarian reforms most of the state farms were dissolved. This was declared by Boumediene in the year 1971. The agrarian reforms measures also necessitated the redistribution of land to the landless. The larger farming units were also broken down to smaller units. With the introduction of land reform in Algeria, the government had put forward a condition which required all the peasants to become associated with cooperatives run by the government. These cooperatives were given the responsibility of granting loans to the peasants. These cooperatives would also help the peasants with agricultural machinery, seed as well as fertilizers.

Success of the agrarian land reform in Algeria:

Boumediene’s proposition of the land reform revolution was a success and by the year 1974, private land measuring 10 hectares was distributed to as many as 60,000 peasants. The peasants were segregated into groups of 6000 cooperatives. The agrarian land reform in Algeria was a grand success. This inspired Boumediene to go for another project known as “One Thousand Socialist Villages”. His main aim was to provide shelter to as many as 140,000 agricultural workers by constructing 1,700 villages.

Downfall of land reform in Algeria:

With the death of Boumediene in the year 1978, the system collapsed like a pack of cards. Some of the factors for the collapse of the system can be summarized as below:

• Fiscal losses
• Low agriculture output
• Escalating cost of imports
• Non performance of various farms.

The new government concentrated more on construction of dams and worked up on water projects.

The newly introduced land reform in Algeria, gave more preference to farms, which were privately owned. This was mentioned in the five year plan for 1980 to 1984. The private farmers were allotted 700,000 hectares of land. This took the total strength of land under the private sector to 5 million hectare. The new government encouraged intensive farming. To promote the same, the government sanctioned several incentives to the farmers of the private sector. The 3,400 farms owned by the state were privatized and broken down to smaller units. Title rights were made permanent. This new system, which was still in its budding phase proved to be more beneficial. It increased productivity by the year 1988.