Every time that squatters are evicted, we are reminded that the majority of our population is landless. Recall that the land of the indigenous Tainos was seized by the Spanish Monarchy at the end of the 15th century, and then seized from the Spanish by the British 160 years later. For almost 200 years after that, our ancestors were enslaved and did not even own themselves much less the land they were forced to labour on. Some escaped and captured some of the so-called Crown Lands in the mountains that were not suitable for cultivating sugar cane and other export crops. After centuries of building their societies in a one-and-one struggle with Nature, the descendants of the Maroons are today resisting the encroachment of the Jamaican State led by a government which is intent on handing over the lands that they have occupied to the foreign mining companies.
Those ancestors who were emancipated 180 years ago were given no land by the colonial authorities who had sanctioned the seizure of the good lands in the coastal plains of the island for plantation agriculture for export. Some of these ancestors followed the example of the Maroons and captured so-called Crown lands in areas of the mountains that were inaccessible to the colonial authorities and their soldiers. Like the Maroons they built their own houses and villages, roads, schools and churches, water and energy supplies, and an agricultural economy in the face of the hostility of the colonial government and without international assistance. It is to this history of indigenous developments that today we owe our domestic food supply, the establishment of banana and coffee exports, the cultivation of ganja which is now being appropriated as the next exotic export, and the roots of one of the most dynamic cultures in the world.
In reality, everyone who came after the Tainos was a squatter. Today after almost 2 centuries on the land, many families have no titles recognized by the Jamaican State, and the cost to identify and survey their land is too prohibitive. On the other hand, the Colonial State had granted titles to the English plantation owners it favoured and some of their descendants have subdivided the lands withdrawn from export production and initiated the supply of land in a market for land. Like any market, access requires the buyer to have information on what is being sold, by whom, at what price, and the resources to purchase. Immediately, that excludes the poor and restricts potential buyers to those in the know – the relatives, friends, acquaintances, and their networks of social relationships.
There have been few attempts at land reform by the governments of Jamaica, and particularly by the governments after Independence. The most ambitious attempt was the land lease programme that survived for a few years before the initiative was “turned back”. Previous attempts had foundered because many of the recipients of plots of land did not have the capital and other means to invest in the productive use of the land. The land lease approach envisioned supporting persons with leases with technical services, credit, and market access. Unlike land that was sold, unutilized leased land would revert to the State and could be leased to someone else.
The loss of agricultural land to housing, mining and roads is well documented. There is still a lot of arable land left in the control of the State that could be leased to young farmers for production and a house spot. As early as the 1950s, there was a scheme to grant plots of land to young farmers graduating from Dinthill Technical High School. A modern version of this scheme could target top graduates of the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE).
Similarly, the State has lands not suited to agriculture that could provide house spots amenable to individual building strategies as is evident all over the country. In the 1970s, there was a rather successful strategy, called Sites and Services, which provided serviced lots on which people built their own homes. With appropriate guidelines, chaotic development could be avoided as people convert their labour and savings into shelter for their families.
Enfranchising the people of Jamaica is the basis for development and the essence of independence at the level of the family. It will reduce the pressure for squatting and bring land into productive activity. It probably will reduce the supply of people looking for wage employment, but with the increasing automation of simple labour tasks, the demand for wage labour services will decline relative to the labour supply anyway. Bottlenecks from specific skill shortages should be addressed by the national education and training programmes.
Land lease for agriculture with housing for the farmer will increase agricultural output, and reduce the pressure for squatting, without the State losing ownership of the land. The political leaders know this. Why don’t they implement it?
Non-agricultural land should be leased for housing at peppercorn rates with the option to purchase, and the lessee given access to NHT finance for building. The lease should allow leased land to return automatically to the State if the conditions are not met by the lessee. Further, the lease should be extendable upon the death of the lessee to provide for the immediate dependents of the lessee. The Jamaican State will then move from evicting to enfranchising the landless.
There will always be the need to take extreme action against builders who violate the relevant permits and codes as the State exercises its role as regulator and law enforcer. In the current chaotic high-rise building boom of 2022, the State appears to be ignoring violations, or acting only when there is public pressure, whereas wrecking balls were used against the homes of squatters. People see the inconsistency as more evidence of inequality and injustice toward the working and the non-working lower classes.
Sixty years after political Independence, the Jamaican State remains objectively on the side of the large landowners, more willing to use its powers against the landless. From the perspective of inclusive development that benefits the majority of Jamaicans, this is one of the main reasons for reforming the constitution and the practices of governance.
Dr. Michael Witter
Retired Senior Lecturer, Economics
University of the West Indies
Mona
