Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: The Economy
nization with redistributing the ruler's former holdings to peasants.
Agrarian reform was hindered by the country's stormy
political transitions in the 1960s, but it was strengthened in
1972 by legislation that authorized the government to expropriate
unused farms in excess of 31.4 hectares under certain
conditions. Despite the broad mandate for land reform, a
cause strongly advocated by the Balaguer administration in the
late 1980s, the IAD has made disappointing progress since
1962, according to its critics. Figures vary considerably as to the
number of hectares actually distributed (reportedly, some
409,000 hectares by late 1987), with the greatest progress on
redistribution occurring during the early years. Since 1988
land redistribution has been minimal.
The IAD distributed parcels of land to individuals, cooperatives,
and settlements (asentamientos). A range of support services,
including land-clearing, road construction, irrigation,
agricultural extension services, and credit, were also provided
in principle. However, peasants criticized the IAD's sluggish
performance in transferring land titles, its distribution of
mainly marginal agricultural land, and the generally inadequate
level of support services caused by lack of funding and
ineffectual management of the IAD. For example, only 38 percent
of IAD land was actually devoted to the cultivation of
crops in the late 1980s; 9 percent was devoted to livestock and
53 percent to forestry or other uses.
After decades of wrangling, the Dominican Republic completed
the 1980s with the issue of land largely unresolved from
the perspectives of both peasants and commercial farmers.
This failure was most evident in data demonstrating an ongoing
pattern of skewed land ownership. Frequent spontaneous
land seizures and invasions by peasants of underused land
throughout the 1980s epitomized rural frustrations. On one
end of the economic spectrum, numerous rural associations,
disconcerted by the pace and the quality of land reform, participated
in land seizures, demanding "land for those who work
it." On the other end of the spectrum, agribusiness complained
of the government's inconsistent policies with regard to the
expropriation of land. Some analysts viewed such inconsistencies
as a deterrent to new investment in diversified agriculture
and therefore as counterproductive to the republic's efforts
through the encouragement of tourism and the development
of mineral resources to diversify its economy away from sugar.
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