Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Ruralfamily in Hato-Nuevo Magueyal, southwest of Santo Domingo
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
55 percent were less than one hectare in size.) Roughly 70 percent
of all families relied on wage labor. Their poverty worsened
in the early 1990s because the demand for such labor was
down about 50 percent.
Land reform legislation has had little overall impact on landholding
both because the reforms contained few provisions for
land redistribution and because they have been poorly
enforced. The Dominican Agrarian Institute (Instituto Agrario
Dominicano—IAD) was created in 1962 to oversee land redistribution,
which began with land accumulated by Trujillo and
acquired by the state after his death. Little land was distributed
to families during Balaguer's first term (1966-70). Instead,
large tracts were turned over to a number of large estates for
cattle-raising. Distribution to families was speeded up in the
1970s. By the early 1980s, irrigated rice farms, which had been
left intact and farmed collectively, were slated for division into
small, privately owned plots. However, by 1980 the IAD had distributed
state land to only some 67,000 families—less than 15
percent of the rural population.
Land distribution was not actively pursued by either Guzman
or Jorge Blanco, mainly because of the serious economic situation.
Jorge Blanco announced a land resettlement program in
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