Three decades hence, the longest-running land distribution program in Asia—the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)—has not been completely implemented, according to the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).
This was among the findings in a study, titled “The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program After 30 Years: Accomplishments and Forward Options,” done by a research team led by PIDS Vice President Marife M. Ballesteros.
The study found that over 600,000 hectares of land still need to be distributed and a budget of around P73 billion to P123 billion are needed for land compensation.
“The CARP can be considered the longest-running land reform program in Asia and, possibly, the world,” the PIDS said.
“Despite the substantial amount provided to CARP, the program had not been fully implemented. The scope for land distribution is still over 600,000 ha [hectares], and the bulk are PAL [private agricultural lands] that are productive and are utilized for high-value crops [e.g., sugar lands] and with major investments in agriculture,” it added.
PIDS estimated that the majority of the land that still need to go through CARP is planted with coconut at 165,588 hectares followed by rice at 127,455 hectares and sugarcane at 115,613 hectares.
Based on PIDS estimates, the average value per hectare of lands for all crops are P123,685 per hectare. The most expensive lands that still need to go through CARP are planted to sugarcane at P209,998 per hectare; rice, P130,705 per hectare; and coconut, P98,726 per hectare.
This means the government needs to pay P24.278 billion for sugarcane lands; P16.659 billion for rice lands; and P16.348 billion in coconut lands.
The maximum amount of P123 billion was estimated by the LandBank. It gave a higher average value per hectare of the total land at P216,557 per hectare.
Increasing the budget for CARP has been difficult, the study noted. The total CARP budget amounted to P309 billion for the period covering 1988 to 2016, or about P10.65 billion annually.
This only represented about 0.44 percent of GDP during the initial years (1987 to 1991) of the program. Since then, the trend had been downward—0.35 percent of GDP in 1992 to 1997; 0.28 percent in 1998 to 1999; 0.15 percent of GDP in 2010 to 2016.
In the past five administrations, the Benigno Aquino III administration allocated the most at P19.12 billion annually followed by the Arroyo administration at P11.32 billion.
The administration that extended the least to CARP was the Estrada administration at P3.1 billion. The Corazon Aquino administration, which created the CARP, extended P4.48 billion annually and the Ramos administration, P5.15 billion.
“The accomplishments of CARP in terms of area covered and number of beneficiaries have been significant. CARP accomplishments represent 70 percent of an estimated total non-owner-cultivated agriculture land and 54 percent of total farming households in the country. However, there is evidence that the program had been poorly targeted in terms of areas covered and beneficiaries,” the study stated.
The study stated that the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) had difficulty creating a land inventory and master list of beneficiaries due to the absence of information on land use and ownership owing to the country’s poor land record system.
There was also an absence of inventory of farmers or farm tenants in the country, which made it difficult to target beneficiaries.
Further, almost 60 percent of CARP accomplishments were achieved through voluntary modes of acquisition, i.e., through voluntary offer to sell (VOS) and voluntary land transfer (VLT) arrangements, whereby the landowner offers the land to be covered for land reform and usually also identifies beneficiaries for the land.
“While market-initiated arrangements, such as VOS and VLT, reduce administrative cost and facilitate land transfer, it can be subject to abuse especially when good information on landownership and agriculture workers are scarce,” the PIDS said.
The study’s recommendations included support for Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs). The study also found that while there were less “hacienda’s” in the country after years of CARP implementation, the gini ratio – a measure of inequality – for farm has not changed since the 1990s.