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attended to there will be in the long run be social injustice and economic disaster (Seetharaman, 2002, 439).
Land reform has not had much impact on peasants in the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana (two Indian states (Thapliyal, 2001: 299). It has not contributed to community development or poverty reduction. The situation in Haryana is similar to that in South Africa, were legislation impedes land reform.
From a public administration perspective, such a policy needs to be reviewed and be subjected to outcome analysis. This entails examining the extent to which the policy changed its course and thereby failed to achieve its intended objectives (Rosenbloom and Kravchuk, 2005: 354).
Land reform did not achieve the desired goals, and impacted very little on agricultural development and poverty reduction in these states. The relevant state departments seem to have learnt a lesson from these developments. It is noted that land reform is an unfinished agenda in India as well as in many developing countries. There are views that MLR (Market land reform) might not benefit tenants, agricultural labourers and small landowners (Hanumantha, 2001: 592).
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fallow over the years. They changed from livestock raising to soy production or ploughing sugarcane to prevent agrarian land reform (Fernandes, 2009: 93).
In Brazil, as in most parts of Latin America, a high proportion of land, is under the control of transnational corporations (Fernandes, 2006 cited in Fernandes 2009: 92). Brazil, too, like other Latin American countries such as Paraguay and Bolivia, has witnessed struggles on the part of peasant movements waging a struggle for agrarian reform and in strong opposition to transnational agribusiness. The most widely known and most active of these peasant movements in Brazil is the Landless Workers’ Movement (Fernandes 2009: 97;
Nazarro, 2000 cited in Wolford, 2003: 500). Founded in 1985, this peasant movement organised a big march to the country’s capital, Brasilia, in 1996, with people walking for two months to reach the city. This indicated that the landless rural workers’ struggle had become a major issue (Langevin &
Rosset, 1997: 1).
Rural workers began to invade unused land when they realised the inability of the government to apply land reform according to the provisions of Brazil’s 1988 Constitution (Teo′filo & Garcia, 2003 cited in Cullen, Alger & Rambaldi, 2005: 748). The Landless Workers Movement organised over 230 000 land occupations and supervised the setting up of 1 200 land reform settlements.
The movement also initiated the establishment of legislation for land redistribution and the formulation of small family farming (Wolford, 2003: 500).
4.8.2 Policy framework
Brazilian land reform policies go back to 1964 with the promulgation of the Federal Land Statute that aimed to replace the traditional latifundia (large land holdings) with minifundia (tiny land holdings). These systems were flawed in that poor, illiterate farmers had been unable to register properties. There were no titles to the properties and this prevented the farmers from borrowing money against the property (Bryant, 1998: 192). Too many hectares of land were underutilised in the latifundium-minifundium system (Bryant, 1998: 194).
Brazil introduced the Programme of Development of Integrated Areas of the Northeast, which was intended to increase production, incomes and living
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standards for emerging farmers. The programme was approved by the World Bank (Bryant, 1998: 195). In 1985 government launched a National Plan for Agrarian Reform which was meant to improve land acquisition, redistribution and land titling. Eighteen thousand rural families were settled, but very little land was allocated, with only 4 million hectares expropriated out of Brazil’s 845 648 300 hectares (Bryant, 1998: 195).
A predominant concern in the 21st century has been market-based agrarian reform, which seeks to commercialise the land, remove agrarian reform from politics and switch to a capitalist economy (Ramos Filho, 2008 cited in Fernandes 2009: 93).
4.8.3 Merits
The land reform settlements created opportunities for innovative approaches.
Community leaders developed an interest in agro-forestry and landscape planning, which combined small-scale agriculture and conservation (Cullen, Alger & Rambaldi, 2005: 749). Community members were given training in skills that included managing tree nurseries, identifying seed-bearing trees, planning seed collection programmes and restoring seed viability. In addition, the producer groups received both training and financial support in certifying their products. In Southern Bahia, some environmental groups were sponsored to train land reform communities in agro-forestry, water issues, wildlife and land-use planning (Cullen, Alger & Rambaldi, 2005: 752).Overall, the Brazilian initiatives offer a number of useful examples of cooperation and support which could be followed in South Africa. The Brazilian communities are given an opportunity to combine agriculture and conservation which is not the case in South Africa. In some cases, the communities that are interested in conservation of nurseries and seed-bearing trees are given skills training.
4.8.4 Demerits
Within the agrarian reform settlements, the ecosystems they had intended to protect unfortunately became degraded as a result of other factors, such as poor administration and lack of adequate expertise in the government. Local community members being introduced to agro-forestry also needed more
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farming expertise to fully implement the objectives of the project (Cullen, Alger
& Rambaldi, 2005: 749), although mechanisms were put in place to close this gap through the provision of training. There was little land allocated to the communities while about 4 million was expropriated properties. The new system of land allocation did not give the poor and illiterate farmers title deeds to the properties. This had a negative impact on the farmers, development because they could not get loan against their properties.