Land has always been a fundamental issue in Bolivia. It is the backbone of demands by the country’s peasant and indigenous movements. Thus, it also has been part of government programs and of other national actors´ agendas.
The debate was traditionally focused on Agrarian Reform, which establishes that "the land belongs to those who work it.” For this reason, it created tensions between peasants and landowners. However, in recent years, as the rights of Indigenous Peoples were increasingly recognized, the right to territory was expressed as a type of property right. Special attention was also given to the use of natural resources for indigenous populations. This has made agrarian land tenure more complex, with three fundamental actors (peasants, indigenous people and businesspeople) competing against each other for land and rights to land. Now, economic interests are vying for control of the country’s most productive lands, the expansion of agrarian capitalism is in the hands of national and transnational corporation, and national and subnational governments are implementing contradictory policies. There is growing debate over food security and sovereignty, and on the need to produce healthy and nutritious food for the country's population.
According to the latest agricultural census of 2013, Bolivia has 34.6 million hectares that are registered by Agricultural Production Units (UPA, by its initials in Spanish), and these represent 31.5% of the country’s land surface. Of these, 66.1% are located in the lowlands, mainly in the departments of Santa Cruz and Beni.
Within this land total, the area of agricultural use reaches 5.9 million hectares, of which a little less than half is cultivated in summer (2,8) and the rest is fallow or at rest. Livestock activities occupies 13.2 million hectares, of which the majority (82%) are natural pastures and the rest are cultivated. The land that can be used in forestry activities is 13.8 million hectares, mainly forests, and the area for non-agricultural activities is 2.2 million hectares.
For the 2012-2013 period, the crops that used the largest area are agribusiness, agrochemicals and transgenics in the country's lowlands: soybean, with 1.27 million hectares, corn with 0.39 million hectares, sunflower with 0.28 million, sorghum with 0.25 million, rice with 0.18 million, and sugar cane with 0.15 million hectares. In addition, considering valley and altiplano crops, potato plays an important role, with 0.17 million hectares, as well as quinoa with 0.1 million.
In terms of livestock, activities are concentrated in bovine, ovine, porcine, caprine, camelid and other species. Particularly noteworthy is the production of cattle. As of 2013, there were an estimated 8.3 million cows and 6.3 million sheep.
The VGGT in Bolivia
Bolivia is part of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and as such has endorsed the VGGT on 11 May 2012. The CFS at its 38th (Special Session) on 11 May 2012, among other points: i) endorsed the VGGT; ii) noted that, according to their title the VGGT are voluntary and not legally binding; iii) and encouraged all stakeholders to promote, make use of and support the implementation of the VGGT when formulating relevant strategies, policies and programmes. (See FAO Council Report of the 38th (Special) Session of the Committee on World Food Security (11 May 2012), Rome, 11-15 June 2012(link is external)).
In addition, Tierra has developed a publication analyzing the applicability of the VGGT in Bolivia. Read the full report.
Policy, legal and organizational frameworks
The Constitution prohibits the latifundio, recognizes and prioritizes the rights of women to land, and brings a more collective and indigenous approach to the agrarian process. As a result of the new Constitution and new regulations, Bolivia has been committed to applying the land title clearing process throughout the country over the last 20 years.
A new Land Law was enacted in 1996 (Law 1715 of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA)). This Law created a new agrarian institution, established a land distribution regime, and established a system of land rights regulatory process throughout the country. This process was known as saneamiento de tierras (land title clearing). This process is the basis for resolving conflicts, verifying compliance with the social function of land, reverting property, and distributing and redistributing land to those in need.
Learn more about policy, legal and organizational frameworks in Bolivia under the following thematic sections:
Legal recognition and allocation of tenure rights
The Constituion prohibits the latifundio, recognizes and prioritizes the rights of women to land, and brings a more collective and indigenous approach to the agrarian process. As a result of the new Constitution and new regulations, Bolivia has been committed to applying the land title clearing process throughout the country over the last 20 years.
Although there has been significant progress in the recognition and titling of indigenous territories, the government has prioritized an agricultural, production-oriented view of the land in recent years, placing peasants and agribusiness as fundamental actors of national politics. This prioritization has threatened land rights established in many rural and protected, since the government’s goal is usually to expand agricultural production at any cost. In many ways, indigenous territories are not considered as subjects of development and have been abandoned by the state. This is aggravated by indigenous rights and threatened indigenous areas that are seen as targets for forestry, conservation, mining and oil production.
Redistributive reforms
In general, Bolivia experienced several shifts in land tenure arrangements over the past one hundred years. During the first half of the twentieth century, there were very large estates (latifundio hacendal) in the highlands (valleys and altiplano). On these estates existed relations of servitudes with captive communities. This was a kind of reproduction of the previous colonial system existent in past centuries.
After the National Revolution of 1952, and the mobilizations and land occupations driven by peasant communities subjected to haciendas, the 1953 Agrarian Reform - possibly the most radical on the continent after Mexico’s (1910) - sought to change these conditions, by prohibiting the latifundio, which trapped poor rural communities in a state of servitude, establishing different categories of property rights, and defending the property rights of peasants. There were significant results in terms of land redistribution for valley and altiplano peasants.
Agrarian Reform was accompanied by a quest for establishing the foundations of liberal capitalist development in agriculture, based on the promotion of agricultural industry and peasant cooperatives. This implied that, in practice in later years, efforts were aimed at generating development conditions in the country's tropical lowlands (the “March to the East”), with state plans and policies for investment in roads, services, and support for the production of strategic crops such as cotton, sugar, and rice. By directing its attention to the east, the state abandoned the Andean peasantry, and also the Agrarian Reform of 1953 in an integral sense.
Under these conditions, and facing the need to redirect the agrarian process, a new Land Law was enacted in 1996 (Law 1715 of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA)). This Law created a new agrarian institution, established a land distribution regime, and established a system of land rights regulatory process throughout the country. This process was known as saneamiento de tierras (land title clearing). This process is the basis for resolving conflicts, verifying compliance with the social function of land, reverting property, and distributing and redistributing land to those in need.
Despite progress in agrarian regulations and policies, the latifundio has not been eliminated from the country’s lowlands. Rather, it has evolved and dispersed, and it has been hidden within unregulated land markets. This has occurred in parallel with the consolidation of an expanding agro-export model linked to new processes of land and capital accumulation.
On the other hand, the critical situation of the small landholding (minifundio) in the valleys and altiplano persists. The country has not been able to propose structural responses to the minifundio and to the fragmentation of land through specific policies aimed at this problem (regrouping of land, for example). Also, there are no public policies to deal with the situation of new rurality, multiple activities, double residence, part-time agriculture, aging of the rural population, among others, which clearly mark the national reality of small landholders.
Records of tenure rights
As of August 2016, 77.1 million hectares had been cleared and titled (72% of the national territory), while 18% was in the process of titling and 10% still needed to be titled. Overall, 761,806 titles were issued in favor of 1,896,213 beneficiaries. The beneficiaries consisted of:
- Peasants with small properties and community properties: 19.7 million hectares; 1’393,653 beneficiaries
- Indigenous peoples, with Native Indigenous Peasant Territories (TIOC): 23.9 million hectares; 494,439 beneficiaries
- Medium and large landowners: 8 million hectares; 7.876 beneficiaries
- Public land (protected areas, forest concessions, land available for distribution): 25.4 million hectares
Although there has been significant progress in the recognition and titling of indigenous territories, the government has prioritized an agricultural, production-oriented view of the land in recent years, placing peasants and agribusiness as fundamental actors of national politics. This prioritization has threatened land rights established in many rural and protected, since the government’s goal is usually to expand agricultural production at any cost. In many ways, indigenous territories are not considered as subjects of development and have been abandoned by the state. This is aggravated by indigenous rights and threatened indigenous areas that are seen as targets for forestry, conservation, mining and oil production.
Finally, land title clearing has come very late to the most populated areas of the country, and its implementation has not been prioritized in terms of the national good but, rather, the interests of international finance or other state actions (roads, oil wells, etc.). Delays in land titling reflect institutional weaknesses, not only in the state, but also in social organizations and in the private sector. This also implies that, in general, clearing land titles has become just another process in national land policy.
References
Chumacero, Juan Pablo. Dinámicas cíclicas de la ejecución del saneamiento de tierras en Bolivia en Regalsky, Pablo; Núñez del Prado, José; Vásquez Rojas, Sergio; Chumacero, Juan Pablo. La problemática de la tierra luego de 18 años de titulación: Territorios, minifundio, individualización. La Paz - Bolivia: TIERRA, 2015. Colque, Gonzalo; Tinta, Efraín; Sanjinés, Esteban. Segunda Reforma Agraria: Una historia que incomoda. La Paz - Bolivia: TIERRA, 2016. Instituto Nacional de Estadística de Bolivia. Censo Agropecuario 2013 Bolivia. La Paz - Bolivia: INE, 2015.
Additional Links
Links:
- News and events: ILC. Directrices Voluntarias sobre la Gobernanza Responsable de la Tenencia de la Tierra: retos y avances
- Gobernanza responsable de la tenencia de la tierra. Aplicabilidad en Bolivia y Perú de las “Directrices Voluntarias sobre la gobernanza responsable de la tenencia de la tierra, la pesca y los bosques en el contexto de la seguridad alimentaria nacional”. Tierra. La Paz. 2014
Authored on
02 Janeiro 2017
