Colombia Redistributes Land to Armed Conflict Victims via Agrarian Reform

Colombia has given 500 hectares of land to several farmer families in the department of Meta. In what the Presidency of the country has described as “a significant step” for the Agrarian Reform promoted by the government, the director of the National Land Agency (ANT), Felipe Harman, delivered 202 land titles to families in the municipalities of Fuentedeoro and Puerto Lleras in Villavicencio.

He also announced the purchase of more than 8,000 hectares of land from the Special Assets Company (SAE), to be awarded to farmers in the department of Meta. For the Colombian government, these titles represent “not only recognition of the work of the families who have tilled these lands for years, but also the assurance that they can develop their properties without fear of legal disputes or displacement”.

Commitment to public infrastructure in Colombia

In addition, ANT formalized the ownership of 31 plots of land for vital public infrastructure such as educational institutions, medical centers and recreational spaces in seven villages in the same region. This action allows municipal mayors’ offices to manage and channel state investments to improve and adequately equip these facilities and guarantee a better quality of life for residents.

Luz Dary Mendoza, one of the beneficiaries, expressed her gratitude at being able to receive the title to her land so that she can continue to carry out her work with legal security. “They are fulfilling us, we are going to have the titles to our own land, and it didn’t cost us a single peso. Today many people can now enjoy owning their land,” Mendoza concluded.

This sentiment was echoed in the community, which sees in these titles a door to progress and stability. Harman highlighted the importance of the titling, both for private owners and for public use. “The department of Meta will be one of the most benefitted with this initiative, which ensures not only private property but also the correct use and improvement of public lands,” Harman said.

Regarding this delivery of land, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, expressed in his social network account X: “In Fuente de Oro, Meta, 500 hectares of land are formalized. The hoe of the government of change”.

Government target: 10 million hectares

The event closed a series of activities that ANT has carried out in Meta, including dialogues with indigenous and rural communities and announcements on the acquisition of additional land. In total, the government announced that more than 8,000 hectares will be acquired and destined for rural development projects, “strengthening the State’s commitment to the transformation and wellbeing of the country’s rural areas”.

It should be recalled that the Colombian internal war of more than half a century originated in unfulfilled promises of the 1961 agrarian reform, an issue that topped the peace agenda agreed between the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government in 2016.

In this regard, at an event last March, President Petro pointed out that Colombia has 15 million fertile lands in the hands of unproductive latifundistas. By order of article one of the Peace Agreement signed with the former FARC, the Colombian State must deliver to the farmers, at least, “three million flat, fertile lands, with water and close to major communication routes and large markets”.

The head of state assured that his government’s objective was to reach a distribution of up to 10 million hectares. Petro pointed out that, despite Colombia’s history of dispossession, “we must always maintain the idea” of recovering that land, “but we are not going to do it by force, we are not going to unleash a new war”.