Reflections on injustice, inequality and land conflict in Colombia

Abstract

ABSTRACTArguably the most defining characteristic of Colombia’s agrarian history has been the lack of justice in rural society. That lack has had a major negative impact on lower-income rural families (mainly small farmers and wage earners) by helping to make their land a vulnerable asset, subject to systematic misappropriation of one sort or another. Small farmers have also been victimized by a pervasive policy bias against them. The societal cost of these two historic injustices has taken many forms, most obviously death and displacement, loss of land, food insecurity and loss of income. Absent these injustices, the average income of the agricultural population of small farmers and wage earners would be an estimated two to three times higher than it now is. Under a healthy agrarian structure Colombia would almost certainly have been spared the bulk of the violence and suffering of the last half-century.