Tightening the Net: Net zero climate targets – implications for land and food equity

Many governments and companies are adopting net zero climate targets as they recognize the urgency of the climate crisis. Without clear definition, however, these targets risk being reliant on using vast swathes of land in low-income countries to capture carbon emissions, allowing the biggest emitters to avoid making significant cuts in their own emissions. ‘Net zero’ could end up being a dangerous distraction that could delay the rapid reductions in emissions that high-emitting countries and companies need to make if we are to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown. It could also lead to an explosion in demand for land which, if not subject to careful safeguards, might risk increasing hunger and fuelling land inequality. Net zero should be a pathway to real and transformative climate action and not greenwash. Carbon emissions need to be reduced now, and land-based climate solutions must centre ‘food-first’ approaches that help achieve both zero emissions and zero hunger.

Landlessness and Political Violence

This chapter investigates examples of landlessness leading to political violence. Most of the processes that cause landlessness today destabilize conservatives who would normally be forces for social control. Land grabs by foreign investors dilute the power of national elites. Urban investors or military men buying/taking land for projects such as mines, plantations, or industrial parks become political rivals of local established families. Meanwhile, desertification undercuts the economic power of everyone in the ecologically threatened region; this includes the old elites. Within-nation studies provide further evidence of the destabilizing effects of landlessness. Landlessness correlates with terrorist attacks among provinces in Pakistan, and land inequality is statistically correlated with land invasions in Brazil and guerilla activity in Colombia.

Land inequality and numeracy in Spain during the seventeenth and eighteenth century

We assess the relationship between land inequality and human capital at the end of the early modern period, focusing on individual-level evidence from Spain. Our main finding is that land inequality had already had a significant negative effect on the formation of human capital there in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We argue that this reflects the important role of a social structure based on farming families (as opposed to latifundia and day laborers) in the development of numeracy. This is consistent with earlier studies, which argued that farming households could (1) maintain a relatively favourable nutritional standard as a precondition for cognitive skills, (2) limit child labour and (3) encourage numeracy due to its demand by farming activities. Our results are robust, as they include several control variables and potential confounding variables.

Distribusi Penguasaan dan Pemilikan Tanah Pertanian di Desa Nglegok, Kabupaten Karanganyar

There is inequality for land tenure and land ownership in Indonesia in recent decades. The Gini Index can be used to see the level of inequality in the distribution of land tenure and land ownership. The purpose of this research is to determine the distribution of land tenure and land ownership of agricultural land, the level of inequality, and the influencing factors. This research uses qualitative methods with case study strategies. The results of this study are in Ngungkal, in the largest class of land tenure and land ownership, 13.875 m² of agricultural land is only owned by 1 farmer family (0.59% of the total sample). In the smallest class, 13.766 m² of agricultural land is owned by 126 farmer families (11.30% of the total sample). In the largest class of land tenure and land ownership in Talok, 5.532 m² of agricultural land is owned by 1 farmer family (1,89% of the total sample), while on the smallest class 7.583 m² of agricultural land is owned by 29 farmer families (22,64% of the total sample). Gini Index in land tenure and land ownership of agricultural land in Ngungkal and Talok is high, namely 0.72 in Ngungkal and 0.52 in Talok. The small size of agricultural land owned by farmer families due to land fragmentation through legal actions in the form of buying and selling and grants, as well as legal events in the form of inheritance. Fragmentation of agricultural land in Nglegok Village causes the “gurem” effect on farm families, where the size of agricultural land which is initially small becomes even smaller.Keywords: agricultural land, inequality, gini index, gurem. Intisari: Ketimpangan penguasaan dan pemilikan terjadi di Indonesia dalam beberapa dekade terakhir. Indeks Gini dapat digunakan untuk melihat tingkat ketimpangan distribusi penguasaan dan pemilikan tanah di suatu wilayah. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui distribusi penguasaan dan pemilikan tanah pertanian, tingkat ketimpangannya dan faktor yang mempengaruhinya. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan strategi studi kasus. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah di Dusun Ngungkal, di kelas terbesar penguasaan dan pemilikan tanah, 13.875 m² lahan pertanian hanya dimiliki oleh 1 keluarga petani (0,59% dari total sampel). Di kelas terkecil, 13.766 m² tanah pertanian dimiliki oleh 126 keluarga petani (11,30% dari total sampel). Di kelas terbesar kepemilikan tanah dan kepemilikan tanah di Dusun Talok, 5.532 m² tanah pertanian dimiliki oleh 1 keluarga petani (1,89% dari total sampel), sedangkan pada kelas terkecil, tanah pertanian seluas 7.583 m² dimiliki oleh 29 keluarga petani (22,64% dari total sampel). Indeks Gini penguasaan dan pemilikan tanah pertanian di Ngungkal dan Talok tergolong tinggi, yaitu 0,72 di Ngungkal dan 0,52 di Talok. Kecilnya luas tanah pertanian yang dimiliki kepala pertani akibat adanya fragmentasi tanah melalui perbuatan hukum berupa jual beli dan hibah, serta peristiwa hukum berupa pewarisan. Fragmentasi tanah pertanian di Desa Nglegok menyebabkan efek guremisasi pada keluarga petani, dimana luas tanah pertanian yang pada awalnya sudah kecil menjadi semakin kecil lagi.Kata kunci: tanah pertanian, ketimpangan, indeks gini, gurem.