4.2 A quarter-century of Colombian Gini coefficients

all of Latin America – a status that has for the most part remained consistent (Avilés, 2006: 91; see also Coghlan, 2004: 153; Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, 2004; Contraloría General de la República, 2004: 43, 44). During the first few years of the 2000s Gini coefficients averaged 0.570 (World Resources Institute, 2003: 2). The current figure is between 0.591 and 0.576 (Rojas, 2006: 3). Brazil holds the greatest rate of economic disparity in Latin America, but its distribution figures have remained stable (Sachs and Santarius, 2007: 15). Meanwhile Colombia’s rates of inequitable income distribution continue to rise, resulting in ever greater disparities between rich and poor. Aside from monetary divergences, people in rural Colombia have experienced extremely inequitable distribution of land ownership (and of natural resources) for decades. During the 1950s, 0.7 percent of latifundios controlled an estimated 41 percent of arable lands, with 0.06 percent consolidating 63 percent a decade later (Shaw, 1976: 27, 112; see also Powelson, 1964: 36). John Gerassi (1965: 154) documented, over four decades ago, that “3.5 percent of landowners control 65 percent of the land” (see also Duff, 1968; Smith, 1967; Fluharty, 1957; Smith, Rodríguez, and García, 1945). In 1966, only 1.1 percent of all agricultural-based families controlled more than 45 percent of the nation’s arable lands (Christodoulou, 1990: 27). When looking at land concentration based on plots of land less than 10 hectares, Sanders (1981: 90) discovered that in the 1960s roughly 76.5 percent of the population (small producers and/or peasants) had access to a mere 8.8 percent of available land. This inequitable distribution saw a minimum shift during the 1970s, when 73.1 percent had access to only 7.2 percent of arable land (see also Powelson, 1964: 36). If we exclude farm size from the ratio, 6.9 percent of large landowners had access to roughly 75.8 percent of land during the 1960s, with the 1970s seeing the ratio equal 8.4 percent to 77.7 percent (Sanders, 1981: 90). The 1980s saw a rise in land concentration, with roughly 3 percent of the landed elite owning over 71 percent of arable land, while 57 percent of the poorest farmers subsisted on less than 3 percent (Washington Office on Latin America, 1989: 9; see also Taussig, 2004a: 13; Giraldo, 1996: 14). In 2003, Clark wrote that:

in the midst of this vast potential for social and economic justice, the human condition in Colombia is desperate. Per capita income is barely over $2,000

Table 4.2 A quarter-century of Colombian Gini coefficients

Time period Gini coefficient 1980 0.518 1989 0.532 1994 0.505 1999 0.566 2004 0.562 2006 0.584

Source: Rojas, 2006: 3; Ramírez, 2005: 83; Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, 2004; Korzeniewicz and Smith, 2000: 10–11.

with more than half the population living on less than $500. The gap between the rich few and many poor is a human and national tragedy. A very small part of the population holds most of the wealth. The richest 1% control 45% of the wealth. Half of the farmland is held by 37 interests. (Clark, 2003: 24)

By 2004, 97 percent of people in rural Colombia could access only 25 percent of the country’s arable land, while 1.1 percent controlled over 55 percent (see Avilés, 2006: 24; Escobar, 2004: 19).39 One year later, Francisco Ramírez Cueller (2005: 83) showed that five economic groups40 controlled the vast majority of the nation’s capital, and ten specific companies captured 75 percent of the assets in the domestic financial market. Such disparities were further increased in work done by the Comisión Colombiana de Juristas (2004), which showed that 61.2 percent of all officially registered land was owned by roughly 0.4 percent of the population (see also Ahmad, 2006: 60; Avilés, 2006: 24). With the considerable growth in the concentration of land over the last decade, there has been a significant surge in enormous farms, even when compared with those amassed following Law 135. Between the 1950s and 1970s, latifundios grew roughly 40 percent in size; however, by the 1990s these properties increased by another 21 percent, becoming colossal property holdings (Livingstone, 2003: 70; Berry, 1991: 83; Fernández, 1979: 56; Shaw, 1976: 27; World Bank, 1972: 10; Powelson, 1964: 36). For the past half-century, high rates of concentrated wealth and landownership have occurred throughout rural Colombia at the majority’s expense (Harrison, 1993: 109; Feder, 1971: 10–11). Some have suggested “the inequality of Colombia’s land structure has changed little despite much legislation and many reports on agrarian reform” (Safford and Palacios, 2003: 309; see also Restrepo, 2003). With such a concentration of property in the hands of a minority, there are obvious economic effects. According to Safford and Palacios (2003: 309–11), rates of land centralization and rates of poverty are deeply interrelated; therefore, alongside the rise in monopolization, Colombia’s rural populace has experienced a systemic increase in impoverishment. Over the past 15 years the growth has become precipitous. Table 4.3 illustrates how presently, more so than any other time in Colombia’s recent history, the vast majority of peasants live in poverty. Disproportionate allocations of resources compounded by an inequitable distribution of wealth have resulted in increased rates of poverty. Figure 4.1 reveals how general rates of rural poverty varied slightly during the 1970s and 1980s, but have since showed steady growth. Interestingly, this period of increased rural poverty was also the period when Colombia formally implemented neoliberal economic policies throughout the countryside. There was a clear and sustained 12 percent jump in poverty when neoliberal economic policies took hold in the mid-1990s, heavily targeting Colombia’s agricultural sector (see Avilés, 2006: 90; Stokes, 2005: 130; Green, 2003: 235–7).41 The most devastating consequences of poverty have persisted in rural regions. Former Colombian Senator Apolinar Diáz-Callejas (2005) stated that over 69