Bogota. As part of the agrarian reform, the government of Gustavo Petro handed over an additional 6,000 hectares of land to small farming families in eleven municipalities across the country and issued 163 property titles to formalize land ownership.
This involves compensation for families whose land was illegally stolen by armed groups or large landowners.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in just one day more than 1,500 families in the departments of Bolívar, Córdoba, Antioquia, Cauca, Meta, Cesar, Magdalena and Huila benefited from the handover and legalization of the lands.
“This is the largest land transfer to the peasantry in a single day in the history of Colombia,” said President Petro. The simultaneous actions in different regions of the country were led by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Jhenifer Mojica, and the Director of the National Land Agency (ANT), Felipe Harman, as well as other entities of the National Agrarian Reform System.
The handover was celebrated in tribute to Narciso Beleño, a peasant speaker who was murdered on April 21 in Santa Rosa del Sur (Bolívar). The name of the land award is intended to remind us that many people were murdered in the fight for land rights and the well-being of their communities.
“The agrarian reform means giving a chance to the second or third generation of the eight million displaced families who have lost everything. For this reason, the agrarian reform is unstoppable, because Colombia cannot develop a future if we do not come to terms with the past,” explained Minister Jhenifer Mojica at the event.
The agrarian reform is one of the many reforms that Petro’s government is aiming for and must defend, above all, against the right-wing opposition. By order of the President, 2024 will be “the year of agrarian reform.” Processes of land acquisition and land formalization should be facilitated and accelerated.
Felipe Harman explained that the budget for the reform has been increased to around five billion US dollars this year. In addition, interinstitutional coordination will be improved and purchases and transfers will be officially certified. One of the major hurdles for the rural population is informality: historically, rural property has always been allocated and appropriated informally. Colombia remains one of the countries with the highest concentration of land.
He also emphasized that the agricultural reform should not only contribute to justice for rural areas. The aim is also to increase food production so that every farmer who takes over his plot makes an important contribution to food sovereignty.