Context:

There is an urgent need to act on land equality for any significant progress towards global sustainability, stability, and social justice flags Land Inequality Initiative’s report.  

About:

• Land inequality has been historically measured in terms of differences in land ownership.
• Four approaches were used to look at land inequality:
  • The size and value of land that people have access to or hold.
  • Level of security of tenure that people have
  • Actual control that people have, including their decision-making power over land and.
  • Control of the benefits from the land.

 

Key-highlights: The current scenario of land inequality

• The top 10 percent of the rural population captures 60 percent of agricultural land value; the bottom half controls only 3 percent.
• Global land concentration has increased continuously since the 1980s.
• Today, the largest 1 percent of farms in the world operate more than 70 percent of the world’s farmland in countries including India, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.
• About 84 percent of farms were smaller than two hectares, but they operated only about 12 percent of farmland, with little opportunity to be part of corporate supply chains.

 

Horizontal inequality

Horizontal inequality, which is inequality based on gender, ethnicity, or culture in specific groups of people, is interconnected with land access, ownership, and control.  

Impact of growing inequality

• The obstacle to poverty eradication
• Loss of land and livelihood
• Conflicts
• Spread of disease.