Agrarian Reform at the Current Stage of Development
Agrarian reform means different things in different areas
and to different groups of rural people:
- redistribution of large feudal estates, but only to a
degree that allows the creation of viable units;
- enlargement of holdings too small under today's economic
and technological conditions to allow a reasonable family
income to be achieved;
- assistance to smallholders who want to give up agriculture
by providing non-agricultural jobs, training for them, and
facilitating transfer of land to those who are still interested
in fanning;
- support to family farms by providing supporting services
and advice, especially in farm management, in order to reduce
risk;
provision of other forms of social security for aged people
than for them to continue working their land.
These requirements belong to different fields of policy:
- land redistribution, enlargement of too small holdings
and facilitating transfer of land are measures of land tenure
reform;
- provision of supporting services, extension and improvements
in the infrastructure are measures of land management reform;
- job creation and training for non-agricultural jobs are
measures outside conventional agrarian reform and count
among instruments of regional development policy;
- providing social security for aged people is a task of
social policy.
The requirements of agriculture as of today, therefore, are
- to a small extent, the task of conventional agrarian
reform, and this only in limited regions of the country
and for a certain number of estates;
- to a larger extent, they require reforms in land management,
which is the task of agricultural policy, sometimes modernized
to meet the challenges of today;
- to another large extent, they are a task for general
economic development policy which has to facilitate the
absorption of more and more members of the shrinking agricultural
population and has to supply an increasing quantity of agricultural
inputs;
- and last but not least, the often helpless aged people
require measures of social policy to guarantee their livelihood,
and, at the same time, make it possible to transfer their
land to those households which will make more productive
use of it.
While agrarian reform is of great importance for certain
regions, one should not forget the priorities:
The overall goal for agricultural policy at the current
stage of Turkey's development is to achieve income parity
for the agricultural population as compared to other sectors.
This cannot be achieved without reducing the number of farms
and without farm size increase to a level that allows the
application of modern technology.
The current situation requires an agricultural policy with
- regional differences in the goals of agricultural policy,
and
- differentiation of policies according to various target
groups.
Conventional agrarian reform plays a regionally important,
but overall limited role in this policy. A modern agricultural
policy, integration of agricultural development in regional
development policy and extension of social policy to rural
areas, today, are indispensable components of a reform policy
for agriculture which has a chance of meeting the requirements.
As of today, agricultural sector policy alone cannot fulfil
the requirements, but only agriculture's incorporation in
the countries' overall development policy.
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