The past, present, and future of agrarian reform in Colombia

Colombia has a long history of rural inequality and one of the highest concentrations of land ownership in the world. Despite being a middle-income country with vast territorial wealth, a large part of Colombia’s rural population lives without being able to meet their basic needs. Agrarian injustice was one of the root causes of the armed conflict in the country and has also contributed to generating and perpetuating the economy of coca cultivation—used in cocaine production—and the violence associated with it. Amid marginalization and wars, peasants and other small producers continue to provide most of the food consumed in the country. For all these reasons, the agrarian problem in Colombia impacts the well-being of the entire country.

After more than 30 years of neglect and a bloody counter-reform, agrarian reform has regained momentum with the 2016 Peace Agreement and the first left-wing government in Colombia’s history under President Gustavo Petro.

AGTER proposed to learn a little about the past, present, and future of agrarian reform in Colombia, through a dialogue organized in the context of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development ICARRD+20, which will take place in Cartagena, Colombia, at the end of February.

PANELISTS

Elsa Nury Martínez is president of the National Federation of Agricultural Trade Unions (FENSUAGRO) and secretary of the Americas region of La Vía Campesina.

Nury Jatsu Martínez Novoa is a lawyer and Coordinator of the Land and Territorial Rights Area at the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ).

Jenniffer Vargas Reina is a researcher and professor in the Department of Social Work at the National University of Colombia and co-founder of the Center for Research and Action for Peace and Human Rights. (CIPADH).

Moderator: Frances Thomson, independent researcher, consultant, and member of AGTER.