International Land Coalition (ILC) - Community Empowerment Programme ANTU

Country:	Chile
Title:	Securing land access to previously settled peasants of some rural properties in Coquimbo region
Partner:	ANTU
Duration:	10 months, March 2004
Content:	Background Goals and objectives Who will benefit Conclusion

Outcomes:

A set of laws passed during the 1960s gave shape to the Agrarian Reform in Chile. The reform programme defined in detail steps to be accomplished for its implementation, from the initial expropriation process to the final allocation of land to the peasants. The process was, however, interrupted in 1973, when the coup d'etat took place and a Counter Reform was initiated. New beneficiaries were identified and titled, while many plots were given back to the former landowners. Other parcels were left to poor farmers who had already been the target of the first Reform. The Counter Reform stopped an ongoing process and led to a situation of uncertainty regarding the title deeds. As a result, several beneficiaries of the first Reform, and many rural peasants, occupied lands with or without titles.

Lack of title certificates has hindered farmers encroaching land to obtain subsidies provided by the new democratic Government over the last decade. Moreover, the inconsistency of the legislation governing the access to land, coupled with a new interest on this resource by land oligarchy, is leading to an increase in the number of trials. Large landowners are filing court claims to have their currently occupied soils returned. This implies eviction of present settlers having no titles or invalid titles (after the Counter Reform). The need to urgently resolve the dispute on land tenure between current owners and previously settled beneficiaries, as well as the need to find some form of compensation for the latter group, has been recognized as a priority by the Government. Some seminars and workshops were recently held by the Ministry of Agriculture to address these challenges.

The overall goal of the project is to create general conditions in the three municipalities to enable landless farmers (beneficiaries of the previous agrarian reform) to access land and to become small farming entrepreneurs. This will allow them to take an active part of the production system and take advantage of those government programmes aimed at providing easy credit terms and other forms of assistance to peasants and farmers.

Given the complexity of the issue, some specific objectives need to be attained:

Provide juridical defence for peasants requested by current proprietors to leave occupied lands.
Identify alternatives of access to land for peasants (land acquisition, land leasing, land loaning and so forth).
Provide peasants with legal support during the land regularization process.
Develop sustainable patterns of production for each of the municipalities involved in the project.
Identify eventual institutional tools for fostering and implementing programmes for farming and livestock development.

The purpose of this pilot project is to identify ways for possible compensation to victims of the counter reform process which is widely perceived as a form of social injustice - a negative repercussion from the dictatorship time. Eventual success will provide the government with new mechanisms to replicate elsewhere in the country. A preparatory step will be to carry out a territorial participative research which will help clarify types of legal positions in which target settlers find themselves. In turn, better defined socio-economic and juridical situations will contribute to formulating close-to tailored-made solutions for securing access to land and developing farming activities.

According to the 2002 population census in the targeted rural estates, there are around 8 000 people, about 30% of whom will benefit from the project. These are approximately 530 family groups, totaling 2,273 peasants and their families. Villages participating in the project are: Punitaqui, Los Vilos and Salamanca, all situated in Coquimbo region. There are nine large rural estates involved in the project.

The project's aim of securing better access to land for ex-beneficiaries of the agrarian reform implies a differentiated strategy. ANTU will provide technical and legal assistance to those at risk of eviction. This activity, which has been on-going by ANTU since the late 1990s, is intended to defend peasants' rights where possible and/or to ensure the highest possible compensation where positions are not arguable. At the same time, every effort will be made to identify alternative solutions to the controversial issue of a more balanced access to land. This means developing a proposal for opening dialogue within the public administration, regarding claims for compensation in Coquimbo region.

This activity embraces two complementary tasks. Farmers and ANTU will work together to identify possible alternative strategies to access land elsewhere in the region. This attempt will strive to formulate a process in which an eventual displacement might be perceived as a victory, rather than a defeat, for farmers who have no land certificate or posses deeds which are either invalid or not recognized by the judicial system. On the other hand, their proactive participation in defining the alternative strategy will help lobby the local and regional authorities. This could create room for accessing state-soils still available in the area and open up new opportunities for landless people to obtain legally-acknowledged tenurial rights (deeds) which would permit them to access government farming subsidies and incentives. The possibility to create space for dialogue with public authorities is strengthened by the fact that the implementing organization has been working in the area for a long time and has well-established relations both with local authorities and with other grass-roots organizations.

The International Land Coalition supports the project because it mobilizes resources in various ways without diverting from the ultimate scope: securing a sounder access to land in the region. Despite particularly risky and costly elements (farmers without title or legal rights will probably be requested in many cases to leave soils they occupy), lobbying to give poor farmers access to a potential land market is in line with a situation where there are few alternatives. Our partner's intention to make peasants an active party in the market mechanism seems to have potential, as long as participation and involvement of beneficiaries is guaranteed when defining alternative strategies.

In particular, ANTU will facilitate farmers of the targeted rural estates to be actively involved in the formulation of several project steps. A committee will be constituted, comprising beneficiary representatives and a few professional staff of ANTU - Corporación Privada de Desarollo Social. The committee will be responsible for collecting data and opinions from the settlers, at the same time sharing information with the peasant communities. It will also prepare a final draft for the public authorities, documenting proposals on compensation to landless people, originally beneficiaries of the agrarian reform.