Spatial patterns of malaria in a land reform colonization project, Juruena municipality, Mato Grosso, Brazil

Background: In Brazil, 99% of malaria cases are concentrated in the Amazon, and malaria's spatial distribution is commonly associated with socio-environmental conditions on a fine landscape scale. In this study, the spatial patterns of malaria and its determinants in a rural settlement of the Brazilian agricultural reform programme called ""Vale do Amanhecer"" in the northern Mato Grosso state were analysed. Methods: In a fine-scaled, exploratory ecological study, geocoded notification forms corresponding to malaria cases from 2005 were compared with spectral indices, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the third component of the Tasseled Cap Transformation (TC_3) and thematic layers, derived from the visual interpretation of multispectral TM-Landsat 5 imagery and the application of GIS distance operators. Results: Of a total of 336 malaria cases, 102 (30.36%) were caused by Plasmodium falciparum and 174 (51.79%) by Plasmodium vivax. Of all the cases, 37.6% (133 cases) were from residents of a unique road. In total, 276 cases were reported for the southern part of the settlement, where the population density is higher, with notification rates higher than 10 cases per household. The local landscape mostly consists of open areas (38.79 km(2)). Training forest occupied 27.34 km(2) and midsize vegetation 7.01 km(2). Most domiciles with more than five notified malaria cases were located near areas with high NDVI values. Most domiciles (41.78%) and malaria cases (44.94%) were concentrated in areas with intermediate values of the TC_3, a spectral index representing surface and vegetation humidity. Conclusions: Environmental factors and their alteration are associated with the occurrence and spatial distribution of malaria cases in rural settlements.

Successful strategies for the implementation of land reform : a peasants’ account from the Philippines

Entre 1988 et 2008, les Philippines ont mis en oeuvre le Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) qui visait à redistribuer 9 million d‟hectares de terres agricoles aux paysans sans terre. En dépit des échappatoires du programme et d‟une structure sociale très inégale qui freinent sa mise en oeuvre, ce modèle de réforme agraire présente des résultats surprenants alors que 82% des terres ont été redistribuées. Concernant les terres plus litigieuses appartenant à des intérêts privés, Borras soutient que le succès surprenant de plusieurs cas de luttes agraires s‟explique par l‟utilisation de la stratégie bibingka qui consiste à appliquer de la pression par le bas et par le haut afin de forcer la redistribution. Sa théorie cependant ne donne que peu de détails concernant les éléments qui rendent un cas plus ou moins litigieux. Elle ne traite pas non plus de la manière dont les éléments structurels et l‟action collective interagissent pour influencer le résultat des luttes agraires. Dans ce mémoire, nous nous attardons d‟abord à la manière dont certains éléments structurels – le type de récolte et le type de relation de production - influencent le degré de résistance des propriétaires terriens face aux processus du CARP, contribuant ainsi à rendre les cas plus ou moins litigieux. Ensuite nous analysons l‟influence du contexte structurel et des stratégies paysannes sur le résultat de la mise en oeuvre du programme de réforme agraire. Pour répondre à nos deux questions de recherche, nous présentons quatre études de cas situés dans la province de Cebu.

Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs, por Michael Lipton, Londres: Routledge, 2009

Reseña

Land Reform, Latifundia and Social Development at Local Level in Colombia, 1961-2010

The paper analyzes the effects of land reform on social development – poverty and land distribution-at the local level. Land reform in Colombia, understood as the allocation of public land to peasant, has granted 23 million hectares which comprises around 20% of Colombian territory and about 50% of usable productive land. Theoretically, the net impact of land reform on development is the combination of a poverty effect and a land distribution effect. Our findings suggest that land reform from 1961 onwards has slightly reduced poverty and mildly improved land distribution. Nonetheless,municipalities with strong presence of latifundia prior to1961 have experienced both a slower drop in poverty and a weaker improvement of land distribution .This paper finds that prevalence of latifundia partially offset the positive effect of land reform in promoting social development.

Post War land reform and the impact on planning in Japan

One feature of Japanese urban areas in the 21st century that is bound to strike any Western visitor is the extensive spread of its suburbs with their varied mixing of land-uses. It is almost impossible to pinpoint precisely where the city begins and where it ends. During the post-War period, this characteristic pattern of land-use sprawled over the countryside, seemingly unimpeded by planning restrictions. The number of studies that highlight the problems of Japanese planning outweighs the research that explores its underlying causes. This paper aims to partly redress this imbalance by describing a case study of the failed implementation of the green belt around Tokyo and to link this with the Allied Occupation’s postwar land reforms and drafting of a new constitution in the period 1946-1951. Overall, we aim to highlight how the ostensible benefits and aims of a land reform programme can entail substantial disbenefits or unforeseen outcomes in terms of land-use planning..

A model of rural conflict : violence and land reform policy in Brazil

In the past ten years the struggle for land in Brazil has taken the shape of invasions of private land by welI organized groups of land less squatters. It is argued in this paper that these invasions and the resulting contlicts are a direct response to the land reform program which has been adopted by the govemment since 1985. which is based on the expropriation of farms and the creation of settlement projects. The set of formal and informal institutions which compromise the land reform program are used as the background for a game-theory model of rural contlicts. T estable implications are derived trom this model with particular emphasis on the etfect of policy variables on violence. These are then tested with panel data at state levei from 1988 to 1995. - It is shown that govemment policy which has the intent of reducing the amount of violence has the opposite etfect of leading to more incentives for contlicts.

Land reform in NE Brazil: a stochastic frontier production efficiency evaluation

O objetivo desse artigo é caracterizar as fontes da ineficiência técnica e alocativa em um conjunto de 308 beneficiários de um programa de reforma agrária de mercado, chamado Cédula da Terra;, distribuídos em cinco estados do Nordeste brasileiro. Estudos conduzidos por Buainain et al. (2002) mostraram existem poucas diferenças entre as características de beneficiários deste programa e dos programas tradicionais de reforma agrária por expropriação e que portanto, os resultados obtidos por este trabalho permitem visualizar as dificuldades enfrentadas pelos assentamentos no Brasil. Para medir eficiência, estimou-se uma função de produção potencial segundo a metodologia de Battese e Coelli (1995) e a partir disto, procurou-se explicar as razões da ineficiência (relativa) encontrada. Os resultados apontam para a existência de ineficiência técnica e alocativa que é identificada principalmente nas situações em que a presença de produção para consumo é elevada. Tratase de um resultado que revela a pouca maturidade da maioria dos lotes dos assentados do PCT e a dificuldade de superar as limitações impostas pela condição inicial de formação dos assentamentos de reforma agrária, principalmente na região nordeste do Brasil.

After land reform, the market?

Includes bibliography