Land Reform under Military-Agrarian Reform in Peru, 1969-78

Agrarian Reform in Peru, 1969-78 R Maria Saleth The issue of land reform postponed for decades in Peru was addressed by a relatively progressive military leader- ship during 1969-78 thanks to political pressure from radical peasant movements and the economic crises in agriculture. The reform has transferred 50 per cent of the total farm area to about 33 per cent of the rural families organised mostly under various forms of co-operatives to preserve agricultural productivity while effecting an unequal pattern of rural income distribution. Consequently, the tenurial changes effected under the reform was only minimal although there occurred fundamental changes in tenancy and other agrarian relations with the elimination of all remaining vestiges of the feudal-like hacienda system. Although the reform failed to solve the problems of landlessness, it can be considered a notable success in modernising the agrarian sector so as to create the necessary conditions for autonomous industrial development like the creation of market-oriented and technologically responsive rural middle class, the transfer of agrarian capital into the industrial sector, and the conversion of former oligarchies and hacienda owners into industrial bourgeoisie by cutting their links with land.