Agrarian reform in Venezuela: -defensible from a socio-economic perspective? A field study in Venezuela

The land reform in Venezuela was introduced in 2001 and will according to its proponents decrease the country?s oil dependency through increasing agricultural production. The law also intends to decrease inequalities in the society by giving land to landless peasants. To achieve this, a land tax will be introduced on unproductive land and land can also be expropriated or repossessed by the state. The land reform has been criticised heavily and its opponents believe the reform will result in a major flight of capital as well as decreasing investments because of insecurity and consequently less agricultural production. The aim of this paper is to find out whether this land reform could be defensible from a socio-economic perspective. The starting point has been economic theories of how an agrarian reform could be conducted in an economically defensible way and focus has been on efficiency, investments and inequality. Further an interview study in Venezuela has been carried through with the aim to find out whether the Venezuelan land reform comply with the theoretical design.