(DP 2014-02)
Abstract
This paper revisits the record of CARP over the quarter century of its existence. By 2014, 5.05 million of the 5.37m hectares of the targeted agricultural land shall have been distributed. As a program for land asset equity, it shall have accomplished 99% of its target, whopper of a success for a government program. As a program to advance the economic welfare of farmers, it has accomplished the opposite of its stated goals. Productivity has fallen drastically in coconut and sugar and poverty incidence among agrarian reform beneficiaries in agrarian reform communities stood at 54% in 2011 higher than for farmers in general. CARP and CARPER has created a new class of people: the landed poor. The paper then explores the many design and implementation flaws that has brought this sad result among which are: CARP’s illegalization of the market for land assets (Section 27) sending Coasean bargains underground and the 5-hectare land ownership ceiling leading to the demise of the legal rural financial market and the flight of private capital. It is time to shift from land equity to farm efficiency. The paper argues for the return of the market in rural production: let productive farmers legally cultivate 10 or more hectares as the market dictates; let PSE-registered firms legally operate agro-industrial farms without land ceiling. Poverty reduction requires the shift of resources and manpower from informal to formal sectors. CARP has done the opposite. To echo the architect of the great Chinese Economic Miracle, Deng Xiaoping: It is time to stop redistributing poverty!
Keywords CARP, agrarian reform, agriculture, Coase Theorem, Philippines
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1 comment
Pedro says:
Mar 14, 2014
When you apply a shotgun solution to all your problems you get much bigger problems.
With close to completing land redistribution under agrarian reform(RA.3844, PD.27, RA.6657, RA.9700) the average age of our farmers is 55 years old according to Central Mindanao University. And specifically for rice farmers its 59 years old according to assist. DA Dante Delima who is in charge of our rice program. And according to NSO, between April 2012 to April 2013 we lost 624,000 workers due to old age. In a 2006 DAR-GTZ(German)Study, as high as 53% of agrarian reform beneficiaries have sold their rights, mortgaged, or abandoned their lands without paying taxes.
Dr. Raul Fabella mentioned that it created a new class of people, the landed poor.
Because of CARP the youth and their parents have realized they have been condemned to subsistence farming and highly vulnerable to being wiped out due to being ill-equipped to run their small farms as a business. Sooner or later they will realize that the low prices caused by smuggling will be for the long haul when government lowers our tariff protection to 0-5% starting next year which will make them and their labor intensive and expensive farming obsolete.
With CARP they cannot buy or sell land condemning them to subsistence farming. With millions of farmer-beneficiaries asking for help, the government has not been able to provide the needed and immediate government support.
These are just the tip of the iceberg but you wonder why government gives in to some bishops and their Leftists advocates who also agree that CARP has been a huge failure, counter-productive to our farmers and our agriculture. It is obvious their agenda and interests lie elsewhere. Soon, we will lose our food security to foreign interests when we cannot afford to produce our own food to feed ourselves. Soon it will be foreign multinationals who will be leasing our lands because we cannot afford to do so anymore,
With highly subsidized mechanized plantations raring to compete with our primitive plots, when will we ever wake up.
What are we all waiting for? Stop redistributing poverty now!