Rural memory is the root of social continuity. The countryside holds not only the past but also the possibility of the future. Rural communities preserve solutions that modernity rediscovers under new names: agroecology, circular economy, resilience. The future is planted in memory. Latin America continues to face the same historical dilemma: how to balance economic efficiency with social equity.

The agrarian history of Latin America is one of struggles for social justice, economic modernization, and territorial autonomy. The agrarian reforms of the twentieth century reshaped rural landscapes but did not fully resolve inequality or productivity gaps. Neither land redistribution nor a shift toward export-oriented agriculture has solved the problem of equity; instead of continuing to swing between these extremes, today’s new reforms seek a different approach: creating territorial rights, strengthening peasant economies, ensuring access to water, and modernizing without destroying communities or ecosystems.

Since colonial times, the region was shaped by a highly concentrated land system—encomiendas, repartimientos, and later haciendas and latifundios—that consolidated the power of landholding elites. For three centuries, millions of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and rural workers labored on lands they did not own, under systems that reproduced servitude, exploitation, and dependence.

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some countries began to recognize that land concentration was an obstacle to development and political stability. Mexico took the lead with its 1917 Constitution and the ejido system, while the rest of Latin America was slower to follow. Tensions between rural oligarchies and emerging peasant movements grew as demand for food increased and industrialization took hold. Although reforms across the region shared broad goals—redistributing land and modernizing agriculture—each country followed its own trajectory.

With economic liberalization, many countries shifted from land redistribution to policies focused on titling, credit, competitiveness, and market integration. Some privatized communal lands; others strengthened Indigenous territorial rights.

Today, rural conflicts are no longer only about land and economic inequality. They now center on:

• Water availability, quality, and rights
• Migration, rural aging, and labor shortages
• Climate-vulnerable production systems
• Food sovereignty and dependency on imports
• Excessive intermediation and concentrated value chains
• Limited credit and agricultural insurance
• Gender inequality and precarious labor conditions
• Dependence on external inputs and price volatility
• Environmental pressures (soil degradation, biodiversity loss)
• The challenge of building sustainable production models
• These challenges also represent opportunities for those capable of solving them and meeting the growing food demand of an urbanizing world.

Mexico (1917–1992)

Mexico is the emblematic example, carrying out massive land redistribution through the ejido. The Mexican Revolution (1910–1917) placed land at the center of national conflict.

Emiliano Zapata embodied the most radical and coherent agrarian vision: “The land belongs to those who work it.” He sought to restore Indigenous, and peasant communal lands usurped under Porfirio Díaz and viewed the agrarian issue not as economic but moral—without land, there was no freedom.

Pancho Villa supported redistribution but took a more pragmatic approach, envisioning productive smallholders integrated into a modern economy through cooperatives, military farms, and agricultural colonies.

Venustiano Carranza, who promulgated the Constitution of 1917, championed agrarian reform mainly as a political necessity. Articles 27 and 28 placed land under the Nation’s domain, banned latifundios and monopolies, and protected ejidos and communal holdings. Article 123 extended labor rights to rural workers.

Álvaro Obregón implemented the legal framework by distributing more land and promoting education and agricultural extension services.

Agrarian nationalism reached its peak under Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), who distributed over 18 million hectares, strengthened the ejido system, and promoted cooperatives and collective credit.

The 1992 reform ended land redistribution, allowed certification of ejido parcels, enabled leasing and partnerships with private investors, and paved the way for full land ownership through PROCEDE. While this aimed to stimulate investment and efficiency, structural limits persisted: lack of credit, low mechanization, and fragmented production.

Meanwhile, the private sector advanced rapidly. Mexico became the world’s leading exporter of tomatoes, avocados, mangos, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries—and second in lemons, peppers, cucumbers, asparagus, and many more—thanks to trade liberalization, especially the NAFTA/USMCA, and agreements with the EU, Japan, and Asia, combined with extraordinary climatic diversity and a deep agricultural tradition that supported greenhouse, irrigation, and agroindustrial modernization.

Bolivia (1953)

Bolivia’s agrarian reform emerged from the 1952 National Revolution, dismantling Andean landholding elites and ending systems that resembled feudal servitude. The 1953 Agrarian Reform Decree expropriated latifundios and redistributed land to Indigenous and peasant communities. Although democratizing land, the reform lacked technical support, credit, and infrastructure, limiting long-term productivity. Still, it remains a landmark in Bolivia’s social history and paved the way for contemporary Indigenous territorial rights.

Cuba (1959–1963)

After the Revolution, Cuba implemented one of the most radical agrarian reforms of the century. The First Agrarian Reform Law (1959) abolished latifundios, expropriated sugar estates, and capped landholdings. The Second Law (1963) nationalized nearly all agricultural land. Though the model became heavily centralized and state-dependent, the reforms profoundly restructured rural society, guaranteeing universal access to land and becoming a global symbol of agrarian equality.

Chile (1962–1973)

Chile’s reform began under Eduardo Frei Montalva and intensified under Salvador Allende, expropriating large estates and creating campesino settlements. The 1973 coup reversed much of the reform: land was privatized, cooperatives dismantled, and the agricultural sector liberalized.

From the 1980s onward, Chile built Latin America’s first high-tech agroexport model—fruit, wine, forestry—supported by capital, irrigation infrastructure, logistics, and global integration. This made Chile one of the continent’s most technologically advanced agricultural producers but widened territorial inequalities. In recent decades, high costs, labor shortages, droughts, and climate extremes have pushed some production (e.g., table grapes, blueberries) to Peru and Colombia.

Peru (1969)

General Juan Velasco Alvarado carried out one of Latin America’s most sweeping agrarian reforms, expropriating coastal and Andean estates and converting them into cooperatives (CAPs) and social agricultural enterprises (SAIS). While the reform dismantled landlord power, collective management often struggled with bureaucracy, low productivity, and limited markets.

Beginning in the 1990s, Peru experienced the fastest agroexport boom in Latin America, powered by large irrigation megaprojects (Olmos, Chavimochic, Majes-Siguas), trade agreements, macroeconomic stability, and the transfer of Chilean agribusiness expertise. Peru became a global leader in blueberries, table grapes, asparagus, avocados, and citrus.

Colombia (1936, 1961, 1994)

Colombia, part of historic Gran Colombia, sits in one of the Earth’s richest precipitation zones and possesses extraordinary agronomic potential. Yet its land structure remained highly concentrated.

The 1936 Law 200 attempted to formalize settler rights; in 1961, INCORA began redistribution efforts. These were consistently undermined by elite resistance, weak titling systems, armed conflict, paramilitarism, and narcotrafficking, which caused massive displacement and reconcentration of land.

Reform attempts in 1994 sought to create a land market with subsidies but had little effect.

In recent decades, Colombia built strong export clusters in flowers, coffee, bananas, avocados, sugarcane, and citrus—modern sectors oriented more toward international markets than domestic food needs.

Brazil

Brazil retains one of the highest land concentrations in the region. Attempts at redistribution have been overshadowed by the power of agribusiness.

The MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) became Latin America’s most powerful agrarian movement, organizing occupations of unproductive land and pressuring the state for redistribution. Millions of hectares have been titled since the 1990s, but progress remains slow. Meanwhile, agricultural expansion into the Amazon generates environmental and social conflicts.

Brazil today has two parallel rural economies:

1. a) Modern agribusiness (export-oriented)

• Soy, maize, beef, cotton, coffee
• Highly mechanized and globally integrated

1. b) Family farming (domestic food supply)

• Produces 70% of fresh food consumed in Brazil
• Dependent on public programs (PRONAF, PAA, PNAE)

Modernization has advanced, but the social and domestic food dimensions remain central for national stability.

Ecuador

Ecuador’s agrarian history reflects deep colonial land concentration. The 1964 and 1973 reforms sought to eliminate the huasipungo system, redistribute land, and modernize agriculture. While they weakened traditional hacienda elites, limited financing, technical assistance, and market access reduced long-term impact, and much of the redistributed land was of poor quality.

The country later expanded agroexports (bananas, cacao, coffee, flowers, shrimp) while inequality in landholding persisted. Since the 2000s, Ecuador has advanced Indigenous and Afro-descendant territorial rights. Yet challenges remain: fragmented minifundios in the Andes, pressure on Amazon ecosystems, climate change, and weak rural infrastructure. Today Ecuador is the world’s largest exporter of bananas and shrimp.

Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras)

Reform attempts were constrained by coups, elite interests, and civil wars. Guatemala’s reform under Jacobo Árbenz (1952) was cut short by U.S. intervention (1954).

El Salvador redistributed some land during the 1980s peace process, but beneficiaries lacked credit and technical support. Honduras implemented partial reforms that never challenged the dominance of banana companies or latifundios. Land concentration—and rural conflict—continues today.