Thus, agrarian reform necessarily implies changes in the power structure and freedom from exploitation; greater equality in access to resources, income, status and security; increase in production and productivity; and contribution to economic growth.

In most areas in Asia, the prevailing agrarian structure hinders the increase in production and productivity due to the absence of state-led genuine land distribution to the poor peasants to break the monopoly of landlords. Among the factors reinforcing this problem include the fragmentation of fields; high production costs; backward tools of production; lack of credit; lack of infrastructure and marketing facilities due to low public investment; among others.

Instead of improving the standard of living of the rural population, the agrarian structure reinforces oppression and exploitation through unequal distribution of income and wealth; usury and merchant exploitation; depression of farm gate prices of produce; etc.

On the political aspect, instead of promoting changes in the power structure, political freedom and justice, the prevailing agrarian structure supports the concentration of power in the hands of landlords whose economic power emanate from the control of resources and means of production.

The struggle for land waged by the peasants and marginalized rural sector has forced governments to implement agrarian reform programs. Most of these programs, however, have been inherently defective because landlord interests prevailed in watering down provisions. Moreover, the World Bank's imposition of its structural adjustment programs that curbed public spending further made genuine land reform impossible. Its imposition of the neo-liberal paradigm is inherently opposed to policy interventions aimed at achieving social equity. The World Bank's model of export-oriented agriculture promoted production that merely served the needs of industrialized countries, while monopoly ownership of land provided a more favorable environment for cash crop production.

In the mid-1990s, the World Bank changed its tack and reinstated agrarian reform in the international agenda. In the context of major developments in the post-Cold War era and with China taking a capitalist path, the WB took advantage of the popularity of land reforms in the Third World and launched its own brand of land reform. Turning away from the core objective of agrarian reform of wiping out feudal exploitation in the countryside, the WB promoted "market-assisted land reform" as an alternative to the actual state-led land distribution concept of land reform.

This involves breaking up communal lands and promoting active sales markets to the interest of big landowners and created a stratum of rich entrepreneurial farmers who are able to venture into capital-intensive farming. Poor farmers, on the other hand, are being displaced since there is no place for them in this highly competitive environment.

The situation of poor farmers in the agricultural and poor economies of Asia is also relentlessly threatened as the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Agriculture further intensifies the export-oriented and import dependent economies of the Third World. As a result, social movements are increasingly steadfast in calling for people's food sovereignty and genuine agrarian reform in every protest actions around the world.

Agrarian Reform Research Conference

The struggles for genuine agrarian reform vary from country to country and indeed valuable lessons can be learned from them. Thus the need to conduct a research study focusing on developing concrete insights and lessons for pursuing agrarian reform in Asia. And in the tradition of APRN's researches, APRN is developing a collaborative research on agrarian reform over a period of 6 months to a year. Thus, APRN in cooperation with the Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific is organizing a workshop to prepare for the coordinated research on agrarian reform. This research conference is meant to bring together researchers and peasants around Asia-Pacific who are interested in participating in a coordinated research effort on the theme.

Objectives

This coordinated research hopes to:

• Provide a venue for sharing of country experiences in neoliberal revision of agrarian reform programs and their impact on peasants and the economy.
• Conduct a preliminary assessment of impact of neoliberal globalization on agrarian reform programs and identify important areas of concern and further investigation in support of peasant and advocates responses to the issue.
• Forumulate a research design and program on agrarian reform for adoption by APRN.

Workshop/Conference Design

The first phase of the coordinated research project is the research planning workshop to be held on October 17-18, 2005 in Bacolod City, Negros Island, Philippines. It will gather about 20-30 representatives of peasant groups and advocates from all over Asia-Pacific. The participants are limited to organizations with an intention to join the planned APRN coordinated research project. They will be selected principally from organizations with specialization on agriculture policy research and committed to participation in the project.

Participation is not limited to APRN and People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty members, if slots are not filled. However, these participants will be requested to shoulder their own expenses including conference fees to cover food and lodging. A limited number of Southern participants will be subsidized by APRN and PANAP.

The research planning conference will cover discussion of general trends in agrarian reform programs and the demand for genuine agrarian reform, workshops on country report on agrarian reform programs, identification of research gaps and possible areas for new research, and finally coordinated research planning itself.

Based on the identified research gaps and possible areas and aspects of investigation, participants involved in a coordinated research will be identified during the research planning conference. Their research work will be coordinated by the APRN officer assigned to the project for a period of 6 months to a year. Each APRN member will receive a nominal support of $2,000 for their research: $500 will be paid during the research planning conference as a start-up fee while balance will be paid upon submission of the completed research output. One research may also be done by two or more organizations cooperatively.

The content of the individual researches will be discussed at the planning conference while the methods to be used by those making the case study will depend on their country specific situation. But this could include review of records, interview with key people in government and of management if possible, interview with key leaders in the struggle, and interviews with peasant groups themselves.

After the implementation, there will be a public presentation of the results of the coordinated research possibly at the next 2006 APRN conference tentatively set in Thailand.

Program and Schedule

The research planning conference is scheduled on October 17-18, 2005 in Negros Island, Philippines and is jointly organized by the APRN Secretariat in cooperation with Pesticide Action Network in Asia and the Pacific.

Participants are encouraged to arrive on October 15 to participate in a one-day exposure trip to the peasant communities in Negros on October 16. After the two-day conference, participants are encouraged to participate in the Agrarian Reform Forum organized by the Asian Peasants Coalition to be held in Manila on October 19-21, 2005.

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