10. Thailand

Foto: Arquivo - Focus On The Global South

Access to land is fundamental to the livelihoods of poor communities in
rural areas. Land continues to serve as a means of providing subsistence needs as well as of income generation. Holding land enables family labor to be put to productive use, and provides a safety net for family members who work in temporary or insecure employment elsewhere. This was particularly evident in Thailand during the economic collapse in 1997, when the sudden jump in urban unemployment was mitigated by the absorption of labor in the rural areas.

Agriculture is still an important sector of the Thai economy, employing around 54% of the workforce (out of a total workforce of 33.4 million people). The poorest sectors of Thai society are the landless and near landless in rural areas. In 1995 the income of the population working in agriculture was estimated to be about 15 times lower than the income of the population outside the agricultural sector. In 1999 the national average household income was about USD $318 per month, whereas the average income for farming households was no higher than USD $24 per month. Land also provides important social functions such as identification with family roots, cultural and community identity.

The Land Institute Foundation, an independent Thai research organization, has estimated that over 30% of the 5.5 million households in the agricultural sector have insufficient land to derive a livelihood (in the Northern Region, this is considered to be less than 1.6 hectares).
The number of landless families has grown during recent decades, not only because of population growth, but also due to a range of other factors. These include the somewhat artificial classification of 50% of the country as national state forests in the 1960s, including areas that were already used for agriculture prior to classification. Large areas of agricultural land have also been taken or kept out of production. This was particularly evident during the high economic growth years of the late 80s and early 90s, when investors began to acquire land on a massive scale, speculating on rising land prices. The Land Institute Foundation estimated in 2000 that the annual economic cost to the Thai economy of underutilized land (including urban areas) to the country was approximately USD $3 billion.

Much of this land was used as collateral to borrow huge sums that were never repaid. Figures from the Bank of Thailand reveal that the total value of non-performing loans could be as high as USD $68 billion over the period of 1997 to 2000. The majority of these loans were in the real estate sector. As a reaction to the unfolding economic crisis in 1997, the Thai government was compelled to bail out the creditors holding bad debt (especially that owed in foreign currency) under the conditions of emergency IMF loans. Thus the costs of imprudent private lending were transferred onto taxpayers throughout the country.

World Bank Policies

The World Bank's discussions of land policy invariably begin with the importance of access to land as a primary means of alleviating poverty. The Bank's analysis of how to promote the access of the poor to land is more controversial. Following its economic approach in other sectors, the Bank's interest in land titling stems from its objective of creating functioning land markets.

Although the Bank says that the importance of such markets "has long been realized by researchers and policy makers alike," there is a growing opposition to the Bank's land commodification policies from local community organizations and civil society representatives.
Local communities face a number of risks where free markets in land are promoted through national policy interventions. Transactions of land need not be harmful to local interests or prejudicial to poorer sections of society, however it is important to realize where the risks lie.

Firstly, the playing field is far from level. Established actors in the market have greater access to information about financial opportunities, some have greater liquidity (have more cash available for investment), and are more powerful than others. This is particularly so where there is high economic inequality on a regional or sectoral basis. For example, the purchasing power of investors in the capital cities far exceeds that of smallholder farmers in the rural areas. This imbalance can provide a lucrative opportunity for metropolitan traders, which incidentally pushes up the price of land, out of reach for the landless, the poor and future generations of smallholder farmers. The interests of investors and farmers in holding land tend to differ substantially, and the acquisition of land by the former purely as an investment for future use can severely disrupt local development patterns, as has been the case in northern Thailand.

Secondly, contrary to Adam Smith's basic precept, the collective outcome of market transactions is not necessarily socially desirable, and State control for the public interest can be justified.

Finally, the commodification of land has an impact not only on the local economy, but also on the cultural and social relations surrounding land. As pointed out above, in many rural societies, the local value of land includes not only use value, but also a range of other values, according to different contexts. These may emphasize the heritage value of land (as a link with family ancestors or descendants), the community importance of a particular area, local ecological knowledge, and in some areas, may include obligations within an ongoing relationship with spirits associated with the place. These values cannot easily be associated with an equivalent economic value, despite efforts by environmental economists, and therefore risk being lost under a centralized market. If this kind of cultural transformation is what is intended, it would seem inappropriate for it to be undertaken without engaging in a widespread consultation or public debate, let alone for the process to be hurried along, following the international agenda of a financial agency.

Land Titling

The Land Titling Program originated in the early 1980s in negotiations on a structural adjustment loan between the government of Thailand and the agricultural department of the World Bank. Overall, USD $183.1 million was loaned by the World Bank to cover the three initial phases of the project. To date, 8.7 million land titles have been issued. This is a substantial number, but less than the number of titles targeted by the program. However, this figure can be misleading and should not be taken as evidence that 8.7 million farmers have "benefited" from the program. Notably, the program did not set targets for the number of beneficiaries. Each region has been covered largely according to schedule. Delays were reported to have occurred as a result of the difficulties of tracing absentee landlords, as well as the imprecision of boundaries of national forest reserve areas.

Although the World Bank is congratulatory about a change in the land law to permit faster titling, the authorities in fact provided an ideal opportunity for investors and corrupt state officials to abuse the system, particularly during the high economic growth period.

The Land Titling Program, while aimed at increasing land tenure security for existing landholders, did not attempt to address two critical issues of importance to low income farming groups in Thailand. The first was the issue of forest tenure. The Thai Land Titling Program dealt exclusively with "non-forest lands". This is because all lands denominated as forest are considered as state property whether or not communities have been living and farming in those areas for several generations. The state was ostensibly reluctant to offer secure rights for fear of legalizing forest destruction. Consequently, some of the poorest farming groups in the country, including Thai farmers and ethnic minority groups who occupy forests, especially in the highland areas, have been left in a precarious legal position.2 They continue to be threatened with eviction or forced restriction of their agricultural practices, and harassed by officials. This prolongs the opportunity for politicians to cast ethnic minorities as scapegoats for all types of national problems. The Land Titling Program did not seize the chance to 'regularize' the land rights of this large group of people, many of whom have occupied their village lands for hundreds of years.

The World Bank recognizes that local land markets often exist in an autonomous manner - that is, even where there is no national land registry or even any need for formal titles. This was the situation in Sritia, Raidong and other Thai villages that have joined the community land reform movement. These are communities that have occupied land, and where land transactions occur without formal titles, but require the authorization of the full community, based on networks of social obligations. Of course transactions without formal titles can be considered "less economically efficient," than those that occur in formal land markets. On the other hand, community-mediated transactions have been much more successful than formal land markets at keeping land ownership in the community, and land in the hands of small farmers.

The basis of World Bank intervention in land policy of Thailand was supposedly to guarantee secure access to land, especially for the poor. However, according to an internal evaluation from the Bank, land tenure in Thailand prior to the initiation of the program was already "relatively secure and fair," based on solid traditions, and offered little justification for placing a high priority on a project to regularize land titles.

On-going monitoring and evaluation of impacts on the poor should be part of any process designed to "alleviate poverty." But in the case of the villagers of Baan Hong, for example, the Land Titling Program left them worse off than before. Nevertheless, the Bank keeps on touting the virtues of land markets. If the Bank truly dreams of a "world free of poverty," then they should wake up to participatory forms of guaranteeing access to land for poorer sectors of society. In this perspective, land would not be understood as just a commodity, but rather as a way of life for peasants, with attendant social, cultural and environmental values.

Understandably, villagers have not been very impressed by the various processes which were intended to secure their land rights over the past decades. It has taken a substantial amount of research on the part of non-governmental groups and lawyers to identify the current official owners of specific plots of land. Many deeds have passed through several hands in the early 1990s, increasing in value upon every transfer. In some cases, it seems that the transfers have been deliberately obscured, with properties returning to their original owners after seven or eight transactions (though now registered in the name of a company rather than an individual).

In frustration at the lack of action by local officials to recover the land, local people began to organize themselves and take the matter into their own hands. In 1997, villagers in WiangNongLong and Baan Hong Districts took the decision to occupy lands that had been left abandoned for several years. Neighboring communities, similarly desperate for land for subsistence, also organized land occupations throughout the province and elsewhere. Today, a total of 3,798 families have joined the land occupation movement putting over 2,150 hectares of abandoned land to agricultural use in 23 areas of Lamphun, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces.

As there is no provision under the Thai Land Code for common property, the villagers decided to create their own community tenure regime. Contributions were made by each family to pay for a survey map identifying the boundaries of the entire area and the dimensions of each individual plot. The villagers have printed up their own 'titles,' which indicate the location of the individual landholding, the neighboring plot holders, the rights of the titleholder, and have four signatories. Villagers explain that the main motivation behind their 'community title' is to ensure long term access.

Text based on LEONARD, Rebeca and ASYUTTHAYA, Kingkorn Narintarakul Na - Land Titling Program in Thailand

11. Zimbabwe

12. Positions of Via Campesina

13. Bibliography

14. Table of Contents