"According to a report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), just 100 families own 25 million hectares, while two million small farmers have access to only five million hectares."
"But the land will be granted to groups rather than individual owners, thus eliminating the distribution of large extensions of farmland to a few individuals."
LA PAZ (IPS) - Bolivian President Evo Morales announced new regulations and financing for a land reform law aimed at expropriating idle or ill-gotten land in the hands of large estate owners in eastern and northeastern Bolivia and redistributing it to indigenous farmers.
The era of the latifundium or large landed estate seems to be coming to an end in South America's poorest country, where Morales proclaimed an "agrarian revolution" Thursday on the 54th anniversary of the enactment of the first law that distributed land to peasant farmers.
Morales - Bolivia's first-ever indigenous president -- announced the country's "second era" of agrarian reform in Ucurena, in the central department (province) of Cochabamba in a speech that once again declared his leftist government's commitment to the ongoing struggle for land and in defence of the country's natural resources by Bolivia's native majority.
The programme he announced will focus on the redistribution of land, the mechanisation of small-scale agriculture, the strengthening of a "People's Trade Treaty" signed with Cuba and Venezuela, and agricultural production in line with environmental conservation standards.
He also asked his cabinet to rename Aug. 2 "Agrarian Revolution Day" instead of "Day of the Indian", as it has been commemorated since the first land reform law went into effect in 1953.
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