The Significance of the Agrarian reform in Nicaragua

Abstract

The term "land reform" is in Nicaragua often-times presented as a feature only associated with the government of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) of the 1980s (see for example Rocha, 2010; “Land reform reformed,” 1997; Zalkin, 1990), yet in this article I argue that some type of land redistribution has been the policy of all governments both before and after the 1980s, and that this process continues during the current FSLN government, but that the direction and the magnitude of the redistribution has changed significantly over time. One needs to understand this history and the considerations about Nicaraguans make about previous land redistribution patterns in order to make sense of what land ownership means in this country. While the land reform of the 1980s was the most direct redistribution, this article argues that land reform in favor of small-scale producers has been taken up again after 2007, even though it does not form part of official government policy. At the same time other factors seem to be if more importance in lowering economic differences.