Colombia - Context and Land Governance

Inequality in Colombia´s land tenure structure is among the highest in the region. 0.4% of land owners hold 41.1% of all land; the rural population with informal land tenure is 40% and the rural population is 2.5 times poorer than the population in urban areas. In addition, more than 6.3 million people are displaced by violence and or migrating. Inequities in land tenure have existed throughout the history of Colombia. This is primarily due to competing interests between small landholdings (minifundios) and large estates (latifundios); between peasants and landowners. Agrarian reform is an unresolved issue in Colombia, which is why it is one of the pillars of guerrilla movements engaged in armed conflict over the last 60 years. The consequence of these tensions is the displacement of large populations around the country. Peasants and indigenous people were dispossessed of at least 6.6 million hectares of land during the last twenty years of armed violence in the country. To address this issue, there is a policy of land restitution for victims of armed conflict, with more than 30,000 applications (2014) to gain access to at least 1.2 million hectares. The procedure for this is cumbersome and the results are still incipient, so it is a pending issue in Colombian public policy. This process goes hand in hand with the policy of recovery of unduly occupied estates. This policy is not favored by agribusiness, and even paramilitaries and sectors linked to drug trafficking are strongly opposed to it.

Despite progress, land title clearing and titling policies for peasant, Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations have been delayed in recent years. More than 50% of indigenous reserves are still waiting for the process to end in their territories.

Colombia has an important livestock sector (almost half of the productive units over 1000 hectares are in this category), and a diversified agricultural sector which produces coffee, sugar cane, flowers, cotton, banana, corn, African oil palm, rice, potato, and others. Almost all of these commodities are linked to export processes. Here, coffee plays a prominent role and in 2012 it accounted for 30% of Colombian agricultural exports, worth nearly two billion dollars.

The VGGT in Colombia

Colombia is part of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and as such has endorsed the VGGT on 11 May 2012. The CFS at its 38th (Special Session) on 11 May 2012, among other points: i) endorsed the VGGT; ii) noted that, according to their title the VGGT are voluntary and not legally binding; iii) and encouraged all stakeholders to promote, make use of and support the implementation of the VGGT when formulating relevant strategies, policies and programmes. (See FAO Council Report of the 38th (Special) Session of the Committee on World Food Security (11 May 2012), Rome, 11-15 June 2012). In addition, Colombia endorsed the VGGT at the 2014 Global Forum for Food and Agriculture. The summary of Results of the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture 2014, states that, among others that: "We, the agriculture ministers assembled at the GFFA: […] establish and protect tenure rights to land, forests and fishing grounds as well as water rights for all – in particular vulnerable people – as a basic prerequisite for sustainable farming in line with the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).

The VGGT the VGGT contributed a great deal to the consensus reached on the recently negotiated Peace Agreement between the Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Chapter 6 of the Agreement, ‘Towards a New Colombian Agricultural Sector: Integral Rural Reform’, includes a section on land, addressing issues such as access and use of land. The availability of the VGGT as a neutrally negotiated framework to deal with tenure and the presence of FAO as a neutral facilitator, was felt by stakeholders as key to the successful dialogue that led to consensus.

Watch a video on VGGT implementation in Colombia: FAO - Implementando las Directrices Voluntarias para construir la nueva ruralidad en Colombia

Transparency

The following transparency-related scores are listed for Colombia in the Land Governance Assessment Framework carried out by the World Bank in 2013.

Transparency of land use:

Land use change is base don public participation: Weak Practice.
Land use plans are published: Weak Practice.
Public capture of benefits arising from changes in permitted land use: Weak Practice.
Speed of land use change: Very Weak Practice.

Transparency of valuations:

Clear process of property valuation: Weak Practice.
Public availability of valuation rolls: Good Practice.

Transparencia and equality in processes of exprioriation:

Compensation for expropriation: Weak Practice.
Compensation for expropriation of all rights: Weak Practice.
Promptness of compensation: Very Weak Practice.
Independent and accessible avenues for appeal against expropriation: Weak Practice.
Appealing expropriation is time-bounded: Very Weak Practice.

Transparency:

Schedule of fees is available publicly: Very Good Practice.
Informal payments discouraged: Good Practice.

Read the full LGAF report on Colombia.

Browse Transparency International data from the Global corruption barometer to find out more about corruption in the land sector in Colombia.

Recognition and allocation of tenure rights

Agrarian legislation in Colombia is a product of the struggle between the interests of agribusinesses who seek to maintain their prerogatives, and peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and Afro-descendants who fight for the recognition of their rights to land and territory. The 1991 Political Constitution of the State recognizes the legal rights of peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and Afro-descendants. The Constitution makes it possible for them to achieve recognition of their territorial rights. There is also the concept of peasant reserve zones, as areas of agrarian management for the peasant sector that is made up of small producers. However, in contrast to these, Law 1776 of 2016 creates Zones of Interest for Rural, Economic and Social Development (ZIDREs), which promotes spaces for agricultural and forestry uses in favor of agribusiness through public policies and state investment. But, at the same time, under Law 160 of 1994, the government has stopped intervening in land markets, enabling the growth of a land-grabbing, agro-industrial sector and an increasingly inequitable distribution of land. Law 1776 of 2016 creates Zones of Interest for Rural, Economic and Social Development (ZIDREs), which promotes spaces for agricultural and forestry uses in favor of agribusiness through public policies and state investment.

Significant progress has been made in the recognition of territories for Indigenous People and Afro-descendants. Thus, indigenous reserves and ancestral territories cover 25% of the national land surface and the collective territories of black communities represent 5% of the country. Despite progress, land title clearing and titling policies for peasant, Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations have been delayed in recent years. More than 50% of indigenous reserves are still waiting for the process to end in their territories.

Markets

Under Law 160 of 1994, the government has stopped intervening in land markets, enabling the growth of a land-grabbing, agro-industrial sector and an increasingly inequitable distribution of land.

Redistributive reforms

Agrarian reform is an unresolved issue in Colombia, which is why it is one of the pillars of guerrilla movements engaged in armed conflict over the last 60 years. In this sense, inequality in Colombia´s land tenure structure is among the highest in the region, with Gini coefficients ranging from 0.8 to 0.9 (varying according to the methodology used). This is evident when considering information generated in the last Agricultural Census of 2014, as production units larger than 500 hectares represent only 0.4% of the total in the country, but they account for 77.3% of the area surveyed nationally. On the other hand, productive units with less than 5 hectares are 70.4% of the national total and only hold 2% of the land area.

Records of tenure rights

The 2016 Peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP, includes provisions to achieve what is known as an Integral Agrarian Reform, designed to formalize the rights of small and medium-sized landholdings in the countryside, to update the rural cadaster, and to strengthen the land´s social and ecological function and promote territorial rural development (prioritizing areas affected by the armed conflict), among other points.

Disputes and conflicts over tenure rights

Resolution of disputes over tenure rights

Land disputes are heightened by the presence of large national and foreign companies. These disputes arise from the consolidated production model based on agribusiness for the production of raw materials for export.

Conflicts

Inequities in land tenure have existed throughout the history of Colombia. This is primarily due to competing interests between small landholdings (minifundios) and large estates (latifundios); between peasants and landowners. Agrarian reform is an unresolved issue in Colombia, which is why it is one of the pillars of guerrilla movements engaged in armed conflict over the last 60 years. The consequence of these tensions is the displacement of large populations around the country. Peasants and indigenous people were dispossessed of at least 6.6 million hectares of land during the last twenty years of armed violence in the country. To address this issue, there is a policy of land restitution for victims of armed conflict, with more than 30,000 applications (2014) to gain access to at least 1.2 million hectares. The procedure for this is cumbersome and the results are still incipient, so it is a pending issue in Colombian public policy.

References

Cifuentes, Sneither Efraín; Castro, Inti Natalia; Uribe Laverde, David Alirio; Chávez, Diego Balvino (Colectivo Agrario Abya Yala). Legislación de acceso a tierras en Colombia. Movimiento Regional por la Tierra y el Territorio (MRxT) – Instituto para el Desarrollo Rural de Sudamérica (IPDRS), 2016 (digital).
Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística de Colombia. 3er Censo Nacional Agropecuario. Tomo 2 – Resultados. Bogotá – Colombia: DANE, 2016.
Herrera, Johana. La situación en Colombia, en Escobedo, Jaime; Soumoulou, Luciana; Seghezzo, Gabriel; Herrera, Johana; Rivera, Rigoberto; Gómez, Manuel. La tierra un recurso en disputa. Instituciones, actores y procesos en Argentina, Colombia, Perú y Venezuela. Lima - Perú: Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales – CEPES, 2015.
Rojas Bravo, Omar. Demanda de tierras en Colombia. Movimiento Regional por la Tierra y el Territorio (MRxT) – Instituto para el Desarrollo Rural de Sudamérica (IPDRS), 2015 (digital).