land reform in Colombia

Good to see there’s been a breakthrough in Colombian peace talks, where land redistribution has been a key demand of Farc rebels for the last 50 years. Today 52% of the farms are in the hands of just 1% of landowners, giving Colombia one of the most unequal land distributions in the world, according to the UN.  

It’s good that we’re more relaxed about these things in Scotland, where the top 1,000 landowners (0.05% of the population) own 60% of the land.

The  Scottish Government’s Land Reform Review Group’s interim report (www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00422959.pdf) offers no hope that this will change any time soon.  While a few more community buy-outs will be welcome, this is looking like a lost opportunity truly to democratise land ownership and to make land owners accountable for delivering public goods .  The group’s remit states:

“The relationship between the land and the people of Scotland is fundamental to the wellbeing, economic success, environmental sustainability and social justice of the country. The structure of land ownership is a defining factor in that relationship: it can facilitate and promote development, but it can also hinder it. “

While Scotland’s land continues to be owned predominantly by the lairds and the non-doms, we will struggle to shake off our feudal legacy and redefine the relationship between land, people and food.