The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development stated that the ownership of formalized land holdings will be distributed in 19 departments. | Photo: Colombia Informa

Bogota, September 23 (RHC)-- The Colombian government announced on Wednesday that the agrarian reform in the country will begin with the titling of more than 680,000 hectares, which will benefit peasants, as well as indigenous and Afro-descendants.

After this beginning of the application of the agrarian reform implemented by President Gustavo Petro, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cecilia López Montaño, said that "this announcement is the result of a great effort (...) to speed up the process. The massive titling of land is a reflection of the Government's commitment to agrarian reform and compliance with the Peace Agreement."

In this sense, López Montaño added that the titles issued during the last month will be delivered to the beneficiaries until November 15 and "there will be a solid institutional offer for income generation projects."

The Ministry said that the ownership of the formalized possessions will be distributed in 19 departments of Colombia, an area equivalent to four times the size of the capital city of Bogota.  Likewise, "moving to legality, to formality, means having access to all the instruments that the Government has provided for the sectors that work in the countryside and have not had the possibility of producing with the support of the State", said Cecilia López Montaño.

The Colombian Minister reiterated that these steps are a manifestation that the agrarian policy is a reality and, therefore, neither occupations nor invasions of land in the country are justified.

On the other hand, social and agrarian organizations in Colombia are demanding the recovery of their lands.  In this regard, the Colombia Informa platform stated on September 13th that about 150 peasant families have been carrying out for two years an exercise of land recovery through the cultivation and harvesting of foodstuffs.

They also emphasize that they have been stigmatized and, as a result, peasants involved in this process, such as Teófilo Acuña, Jorge Tafur and José Quiñones, have been murdered.

Meanwhile, last September 15, the association that brings together various collectives in the nation, National Agrarian Coordinator|CNA-Colombia presented a document in which it stated that "they continue to insist on the Comprehensive and Popular Agrarian Reform, the recognition of the peasantry as political subjects of rights, the recognition of the Agro-food Peasant Territories (TCA) as a proposal for food sovereignty, environmental protection, transition to agro-ecology and guarantees of permanence in the territory."   

CNA-Colombia considers that the new draft legislation issued by the Ministry of Agriculture last August 17 and filed in the Senate of the Republic, "suppresses important elements such as the relationship between peasant rights and popular consultations (an important tool for territorial decisions involving rural subjects)".

In a communiqué, CNA-Colombia and Congreso de los Pueblos denounced that "the Colombian State, in complicity with national and foreign companies, has historically grabbed and dispossessed lands from ethnic peoples and peasants", perpetrating crimes against humanity that have left a balance of more than eight million victims and more than six million displaced from their territories by the armed conflict.