HOW LAND REFORM CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POVERTY
 

Eugene Ferreira wrote:

Increase in labour cost, increase in pesticide and fertilizer cost ......

As for the land reform contributing to economic growth ..... you call what's
happening in Zim growth and development?!


Zimbabwe is a lousy example for land reform, because it's taking place
under a corrupt, vicious, and incompetent government.

In Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, however, the post 1945 land reforms
are one of the pillars of both agricultural productivity and of their
now fully emerged democracy.

Land reform generally replaces share-cropping Share cropping is the
system under which tenant farmers pay half or more of their crop for use
of the land. This puts them in a margial 50% tax bracket, with no
exemptions at the bottom, not a good incentive.

If Zimbabwe, by contrast, a great deal of the land reform is the
replacement of efficient truck farming and staple plantations with
subsistence single-holdership.

For the plantations the relevant reform is surely unionisation of the
workers, not destruction of these highly efficient agricultural
factories. For the truck farms, transfer of ownership is likely to be
disastrous in the absence of the institution of American-style
agricultural extension services: truck farming is a knowledge-intensive
industry.

-dlj.

HOW LAND REFORM CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POVERTY
 

Tim Worstall wrote:


This threads a bit strange. The original report is using information
from pre 1995....ie the resettlements they are talking about were
voluntary, compensated at market rate and were legal. Such things were
written into the original Lancaster House agreement.


Tim,

My post was about land redistribution in general, and the points I make
are, I believe, validated by the experiences of Japan, Taiwan, and South
Korea.

On Zimbabwe my criticism of breaking up factory farms, and of leaving
truck farmers without the information base they need to function, are
applicable anywhere, and apply to land redistribution whether legally
done pre-1995, or illegally as in the current cases.

And then the whole argument explodes about what the racist dictator
Mugabe has been doing in the last two or three years.


I quite agree with you about Mugabe (and went further, referring to his
corruption and incompetence in my post). However, it's worth noting that
Chris Glur, the reposter, never needs an honest excuse to slag a black.

Best,


-dlj.

HOW LAND REFORM CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POVERTY