"When holders of capital are heavily reliant on a highly specific asset, the threat of expropriation is higher, as is elite resistance to democracy."

-Ziblatt (2008: 616), referring to Boix (2003)

Land inequality encompasses a number of concepts, measures, and facts. This synthesis report breaks new ground by bringing together the many facets of land inequality and analysing them comprehensively. Research presented in this report draws on a wider range of measures than is usually applied to land equality, and examines how land inequality links to pressing global issues, including power and democracy crises, poverty and unemployment, intergenerational justice and migration, climate crises and environmental degradation, and global health security and pandemics.

Historically, land inequality has been measured in terms of differences in land ownership. However, thorough investigation of land inequality requires us to study many more dimensions of land use and control. These include:

• the size and/or value of land that people access or hold;
• the level of security of tenure that people have;
• the quality of land, its characteristics, and assets that may be on it;
• the actual control that people have, including decision-making power over land;
• the control of benefits derived from the land, including the ability to appropriate value from it.

Land inequality is both vertical and horizontal.

Vertical inequality focuses on the distribution of land among individuals, usually owners or those who directly control land. This is not enough. It is also essential to consider horizontal land inequality on the basis of factors such as gender, ethnicity, and culture.

Land inequality is structural and market-related.

Land inequality is not inevitable but is the result of political decisions, market forces, or a combination of both .

Structural land inequality derives from historical or present circumstances such as conquest, colonisation, and land distribution by colonial powers or by the state. In this form, it is common in Latin America and South Africa. Market forces also drive land inequality by encouraging accumulation, often by those who are already powerful and wealthy.

Land inequality is a cause and a consequence of other inequalities.

Land inequality is shaped by economic, political, social, spatial, and environmental factors, which in turn it also influences. This interconnectedness means that addressing land inequality requires an all-encompassing, cross-sectoral approach. It also means that tackling land inequality will have a wide range of positive implications for our planet’s broader inequalities and crises.

The embeddedness of land inequality with other inequalities, and of land inequality with global crises and trends, involves a complex system of interconnections.

Land inequality manifests itself in numerous ways, whether social, economic, political, environmental, or territorial. Most of these manifestations are inter-related and influence one another even across inequalities, resulting in the major global crises and trends that we see today.

The manifestations of land and broader inequalities presented here are identified through the various works in the Land Inequality Initiative, and complemented with broader literature. They are not exhaustive of all issues related to land inequality, such as conflict, dispossession, poverty, and many others that have been well described (Box 3). The issues presented do demonstrate how they relate to a number of key contemporary crises that our world faces today, ultimately linking these trends and crises to land inequality.

FIGURE 4: Land inequality and its links to other forms of inequality and global crises

Land inequality is fundamentally related to political inequality, particularly in societies where accumulation of land conveys political power.

In rural societies, elites may control formal and informal decision-making processes over land, with reduced or no representation of the poor and smaller farmers and landowners. This feeds elite control and increases income, wealth, and asset (including land) inequalities. From land accumulation within undemocratic tribal systems in South Africa (Claassens and Cousins, 2008), to land corruption at the highest political levels in Kenya (O’Brien, 2012), to the perversion of public land distribution by landed elites in Colombia (Espinosa Rincón and Jaramillo Gómez, 2020) – examples are numerous all over the world. These unequal structures often also link to rent-seeking behaviour from public, or what are often considered public, assets, such as land in collective tenure systems (Alden Wily, 2008; 2010).

When institutional quality is low, the rich wield even stronger political influence. Weak institutions, together with the under-representation of poorer segments of the population, lead to a systematic underinvestment in policies that benefit the poor, smallholders, and family farmers. Instead, incentives and tax systems tend to benefit large-scale domestic and international farm enterprises, corporate engagement, and large-scale land investments and acquisitions.

The case of GOANA in Senegal (Box 4) is just one example of how land inequality weakens democracy.

Highly concentrated land ownership or control often subverts political processes and thwarts fairer redistribution efforts (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2000; Boix, 2003).

There is a direct correlation between land inequality and economic inequality in agrarian societies. In simple terms, those with more land of higher value are wealthier than those with less land or none at all. However, land inequality has a much longer tail, also negatively affecting rates and distribution of growth, income generation, and wealth accumulation (Berg et al., 2018).

In the longer term, land inequality is detrimental to human development, socio-political stability, and environmental sustainability (OECD, 2014; Stevans, 2012; Stiglitz, 2012; Easterly, 2007).

Further studies find that land inequality perpetuates poverty (ILO, 2019) well beyond the agricultural sector and creates an unequal distribution of industrial assets that persists over time (Carter, 2000).

In rural societies, power and wealth may also be increased by means of “accumulation by dispossession” and the extraction of profit through multiple forms of rent capture from land and labour (Sokoloff and Engerman, 2000; Wegerif and Guereña, 2019; Cochet, 2018). Illustrative of this process is the global large-scale land acquisition trend that surged in 2010. This land rush led to 26.7 million hectares of mainly collectively held land being acquired by national and international companies, generally with the support and engagement of domestic elites (Land Matrix, 2018; Anseeuw et al., 2012).

Those driven off the land, whether through forces of accumulation, dispossession, or environmental disaster, lose their major source of livelihood. Unemployment and reduced income are therefore common results of land inequality.

In addition, when large farms dominate the agricultural sector, labour becomes more salaried and labour relations are often skewed and casualised, pushing real wages down (Wegerif and Guereña, 2019). Women are particularly vulnerable to casualisation of labour on farms (Barrientos, 2001: 91), while increased industrialisation as average farm sizes increase reduces employment opportunities overall. Depending on the type of production, labour absorption rates are from one (for the most labour-intensive types of production, such as horticulture) to 25 and even 100 times (for cereals, for example) less in industrialised farm models compared with family farms (Burnod et al., 2018; Cochet et al., 2015). In many low-income countries, where agriculture is still the largest employer and few other opportunities exist, the unfettered realisation of this trend risks creating a social and economic disaster of massive proportions (Box 5).

Climate change is a driver of global inequality, including land inequality. It is already driving down agricultural productivity and driving some people from the land altogether (FAO, 2017).

Conversely, land inequality is associated with environmental pressures that contribute to climate change, such as the growth of large-scale, environmentally damaging monocultures that maximise economies of scale (Ceddia, 2019; Sant’Anna 2016; Tole, 2004). At the same time, the more sustainable land use practices of small-scale producers, family farmers and indigenous peoples are threatened by land evictions, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and excessive pressure on natural resources such as water and soil (IFAD, 2018; Borras et al., 2012; Bailey, 2011).

Although mitigation actions such as the promotion of green energy, hydroelectric projects, or biofuel production may have positive effects on climate change, they can push people off their land, divert or deplete water sources, and cause deforestation and environmental destruction (for example, the expansion of monocultures for biofuels – see Box 6) (UNDESA, 2020). Such pressures will likely be magnified by the increasing demand for land for carbon sequestration linked to the achievement of “net zero” emissions targets by both countries and companies. In this sense, even environmental policies aiming to respond to climate change, if not designed and implemented carefully, can further exacerbate land inequality, particularly in developing countries.

There are strong connections between land inequality, changes in agricultural practices such as increased monocropping, and poor health and the spread of disease.

COVID-19 is the latest zoonotic disease to emerge from a combination of unsanitary animal farming and pressure on wildlife populations. While its main impact has been on urban populations, COVID-19 has further exposed inequalities faced by land-disadvantaged groups, such as indigenous peoples, lower castes, the elderly, women, youth, and migrants, as well as casual workers (common in agribusiness) and landless tenants (UNDP, 2020; FAO, 2020; ILC, 2020). Land inequality diminishes resilience to disease shocks and, at a household level, may lead to loss of shelter and lack of access to infrastructure and services, traditional community networks, and institutions of social reciprocity. Women’s resilience and coping strategies are limited by weaker land rights, which puts them at even greater disadvantage in these situations, with a knock-on effect on children and youth in their households (FAO, 2020; FAO, IFAD and UNIDO, 2016). Land grabbing and forced evictions have been documented in the context of COVID-19 (ILC, 2020), exacerbating land and land rights inequalities, particularly in societies that are heavily policed.

Migration has always been an adaptation strategy for humans, including for people affected by land inequality, for whom it is a common coping strategy. Poverty, displacement, poor living conditions, social exclusion, and lack of opportunities often arise from unequal access to land. Migration is also a response to conflict, climate change, and unstable democracies – all related in one way or another, as we have seen, to land inequality. Overall, land inequality – through its interconnectedness with social, economic, environmental, and spatial inequalities – influences people’s resilience and capacity to react (IOM and UNCCD, 2019; Obeng-Odoom, 2017), with migration often being a last resort.

Besides being a push factor for migration, land inequality is also a consequence of migration. Particularly in informal settlements in their places of destination, migrants are often trapped in highly unequal labour and living conditions. Their entitlement to land and land rights is limited and they often risk further displacement. For host communities, migration may add to land pressures, with impacts on the land rights of women and other vulnerable groups within that community.

Rural women and youth face multiple challenges linked to land inequality, including reduced access to land and employment prospects, exacerbated by climate change (IFAD, 2019; Kosec et al., 2018). This has further implications for social exclusion and disempowerment.

In particular, land inequality structurally reduces opportunities for younger rural generations, especially girls, to improve their lives in the long term.

This negative spiral is reinforced as women and youth are systematically excluded from policy decisions, including in relation to land (Oxfam, 2016), overlapping with other forms of exclusion based on wealth, place of residence, race, or ethnicity.

The centrality of land inequality to many global problems is clear. Tackling this issue therefore has the potential to deliver significant positive outcomes for humanity and the planet.

Addressing land inequality will not only redress asset and wealth inequality, but will reduce rent-seeking by a minority, improve income equality, and enable more inclusive and sustainable development.

This can strengthen democracies by establishing more broadly based decision-making among landed populations, with greater participation and transparency. The direct relationship of land inequality with environmental damage makes addressing it imperative for achieving environmental sustainability, improved global biodiversity, and spatial and social justice – all necessary to combat climate change and health crises. All of the above are stepping-stones towards more resilient, stable, and sustainable societies, where no one is left behind.

As Merlet (2020, citing CTFD, 2020) writes: “It is because small producers, peasants or indigenous peoples produce more net value per unit area than large companies, because they preserve biodiversity, soils, forests (on condition that they are not reduced to having to survive at all costs), and because their decisions respond to a logic of heritage and not to a logic of maximizing short-term profits, it is in everyone’s interest not to allow an explosion of land inequalities.”