Iranian Land Reform

Iranian Land Reform was a major

and occurred when the existing feudal system was abolished and the arable land redistributed from large landowners to smaller agricultural workers.

History

Preconditions

Reforms to improve the economic situation of the Iranian population had to be started in the agricultural sector. A main element of this was the implementation of a land reform programs designed to change the ownership structure of agricultural land. The first step in land reform started in the early 1950s. The Shah gave over 500,000 hectares of land to about 30,000 homeless families.^[1] Before the land reform, 70% of the arable land was owned by a small elite of large landowners or religious foundations. There was no official land register yet rather the land ownership was documented by means of title deeds whereby the document did not represent a specific measured area of land but a village and the land belonging to the village. Before the land reform 50% of Iranian agricultural land was in the hands of large landowners, 20% belonged to charitable or religious foundations, 10% was owned by the state or owned by the crown and only 20% belonged to free farmers. Before the land reform began 18,000 villages had been recorded of which the land would be divided among the farmers living in the village.^[2]

First Attempts

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had spoken of the need for land reform for many years but the clergy resistance had repeatedly led him to postpone the reform. At the end of the reign of Prime Minister Manouchehr Eghbal the then Minister of Agriculture, Jamshid Amusegar, submitted a bill on land reform to the parliament. It was, however, diluted by the representatives of the big landowners in Parliament. Despite this the measure was adopted on the 6 June 1960 and was the first attempt at land reform. It though did not lead to a fundamental redistribution of land ownership in Iran. On 11 November 11, 1961 the Shah commissioned Prime Minister Ali Amini to develop proposals for the implementation of the planned land reform program. On 14 November 14, 1961 Amini declared that the Shah had given him special powers to implement the reform program. National Front MPs massively criticized Amini so Amini ultimately arrested the leaders of the reform critics. In January 1962, he assigned his Minister of Agriculture Hassan Arsanjanito to revise the 1960 Land Reform Act. From now on the large landowners were only allowed to own one village. They had to sell the rest of their land to the state which in turn was to sell it to the landless farmers at a significantly lower price. The state also granted farmers cheap loans when they formed agricultural cooperatives^[3]..

White Revolution

Mohammad Reza Shah wanted to promote Iranian economic and social reform in a coordinated reform project which become the

also spoken out against the reform program but his death in March 1961 invalidated the anti-White Revolution fatwa.

Mohammad Reza Shah said before the referendum:

“If I have decided to refer these reforms to a referendum, it is because I want to prevent our peasants from becoming serfs again, that our country's natural resources benefit a few people and that these revolutionary changes no longer matter can be impaired or destroyed at the instigation of a minority.^[5]"

References

Further reading

• Afsaneh Najmabadi: Land Reform and Social Change in Iran. University of Utah Press. 1988.
  ISBN 0-874-80285-7
  .

See also

• Land reforms by country