Where agrarian reform succeeded

It should hopefully be clear to BBM and our policymakers that unless they tackle agrarian reform first, nothing they are thinking of doing will make our agricultural sector more productive.

- BOO CHANCO

Technology and modernization will not help unless land fragmentation is addressed. With the average farm size of less than a hectare, nothing much can be expected, especially for rice, sugar, and coconut.

Curiously, agrarian reform worked in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea but not here. Even if it was introduced at about the same time, only ours failed.

Economist Toti Chikiamco reminded me that national scientist Dr. Raul Fabella wrote a paper on why land reform in Taiwan was successful and I wrote a column on it back in 2014. Here is the link: https://www.philstar.com/business/2014/02/17/1291216/carp-redistributing-poverty

Dr. Fabella observed that "As a program for land asset equity, it shall have accomplished 99 percent of its target, whopper of a success for a government program. As a program to advance the economic welfare of farmers, it has accomplished the opposite of its stated goals."

Dr. Fabella found productivity has fallen drastically in coconut and sugar and poverty incidence among agrarian reform beneficiaries in agrarian reform communities stood at 54 percent in 2011, higher than for farmers in general.

Ironically, Dr. Fabella said, "CARP and CARPER have created a new class of people: the landed poor."

Where did we go wrong? For land reform to succeed, Dr. Fabella observed, some very stringent governance and design requirements are required.

"First, those early post-war land reform episodes were over and done in no more than five years. They succeeded because they knew when and where to stop.

"Japan's, Taiwan's and South Korea's land reform largely stopped at rice lands! By contrast, CARP has lasted 25 years and took on all crops. Counting the years from the original rice and corn land reform in 1964, we already had half a century of land reform."