Searching for Sustainable Development

From the Stockholm Conference on the Environment in 1972 through to the World Food Summit in 1996, international leaders and Heads of States have searched for solutions to mounting global crises.

Of the many Summit conclusions, the one of most significance is that they are one and the same. The common crisis is poverty. If the Summit protocols were blended into one international plan, the call would be for action on the lack of access by the poor to productive resources, insufficient participation by the poor in decisions which affect their daily lives, the inequitable distribution of wealth and the need for reforms in macro-economic policies that adversely affect the poor.

Poverty is a day-to-day challenge for 800 million households struggling to meet their basic food requirements. Sixty percent are rural people who live in environmentally sensitive areas of low productivity. Of these, over 350 million are landless or near landless. Access to land provides the most realistic opportunity for poor rural households to become self-reliant. However, the manner by which land is regulated, rights are assigned and conflicts are resolved determines the opportunities for the rural poor to:

ensure their household food security; access financial services; earn income by producing marketable surpluses; accumulate capital and assets; use their own labour and investments to sustain the natural resource base; build reserves to cope with drought and preserve their assets during periods of agricultural stress; and, access non-agricultural livelihood options.

The vicious cycle that links hunger and poverty to the degradation of natural resources can be broken, in large measure, by ensuring that the rural poor gain sustainable access to productive resources, especially land, water, credit and technology. This is the first step toward a strategy for sustainable agriculture and rural development. Due to its multi-functional character, investments in agriculture and land produce complementary and multiplier effects that expand the livelihood system and widen the food security and employment options of the rural poor.

 People-Centred Development

Sustainable agriculture and rural development is essentially about people and the way they organise their social, economic and political systems to make the critical decisions on who has the rights to use which resources, in which ways, for how long and for which purposes. Understandably, when property rights are lacking or insecure, farmers can not be sure they will receive the benefits and thereby lack the incentives to invest in sustainable practices of agriculture and land use.

Accordingly, tenurial security and property rights can improve food security, increase the incomes of the rural poor, reduce landholding inequalities and prevent rural conflicts. Secure access to land can catalyse practices of sustainable resource use, improve soil management and contribute to combating desertification.

Despite these convincing reasons, the political and economic difficulties associated with land tenure reform have been formidable. Fortunately, new opportunities are emerging that provide more favourable enabling conditions. These include the successful efforts of civil society, the rise of democratic institutions and increased political awareness of the consequences of continuing to neglect rural populations. Furthermore, economic liberalisation is gradually eliminating the subsidies that formerly favoured large farmers. Governments are increasingly needing to develop a tax base that includes taxation on land. Where large landholdings have served as a hedge against inflation, the costs of continuing to hold land for speculative purposes is becoming more costly. As a result, land is expected to come onto the market at more competitive prices. Land tenure markets are also revealing new opportunities through revised approaches to market-assisted land reform, land leasing and sharecropping.

 Land and Sustainable Rural Development

Empowering the rural poor through access to land and related productive assets is the theme that weaves together such seminal documents as the Earth Charter. The report from Rio gives emphasis to land tenure in successive chapters including those on Combating Poverty, Management of Land Resources, Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development, and Strengthening the Role of Farmers.

With similar importance, the World Food Summit Plan of Action repeatedly draws attention to the inadequate access by the rural poor to the means of production such as land, water, inputs, appropriate technologies and farm credit. These elements are reinforced by the mandate of the Popular Coalition to Eradicate Hunger and Poverty, a coalition of civil-society and intergovernmental organisations, whose mandate is to revive agrarian reform through a holistic approach that incorporates land tenure, support services and participation by the rural poor in the formulation of public policies affecting their communities.

Today, agrarian reform is re-appearing on national and international agendas based on the recognition of its importance to economic, social and political stability. Asset ownership by the rural poor is being recognised as an essential requirement for broad based economic growth. Social equity is gaining the stature of a global value. And, good governance and political stability are being recognised as prerequisites to economic growth, the eradication of poverty and environmentally sustainable development.

The Maastricht Opportunity

The emerging international support to these issues presents a unique opportunity for the Conference on the Multi-Functional Character of Agriculture and Land. The opportunity arises from the convergence of this renewed momentum for land tenure reform and the intention for CSD-8 to focus on Integrated Planning and Management of Land Resources. Accordingly, the Maastricht Conference has the opportunity to unite governments and civil-society in a common strategy to address the land tenure prerequisites for sustainable agriculture and rural development.