Patterns and Problems of Land Tenure in the Lesser Antilles

T ^IHERE is a growing controversy over the systems of land tenure and tenancy in the Lesser Antilles. On one side, an impoverished peasantry groping for the security which they feel only land can give them, are demanding radical land reform. They insist upon a more equitable distribution of land, a liberalization of tenancy practices, and greater peasant participation in the production of commercial crops. On the other side, the estate group, fighting to retain the efficiency so important to the survival of a decadent plantation agriculture, point out that the commercial economy of the area is doomed unless production is kept to large, efficient units. The estate group agree to nominal reform, but they insist that only land which is not being effectively utilized be reallocated to the peasants.1 This controversy over land tenure and land reform has been an important factor in the background of discontent which has characterized the Antilles in the last few decades. Like other regions of plantation agriculture, the clash between the large (and often absentee) land-holders and the native labor element threatens to disrupt the entire socio-economic structure of the area. In this respect, the problems of land tenure in the Antilles is significant not only for the region itself, but it is also an indicator of the forces at work wherever plantation agriculture exists in the tropics. The purpose of this study is to outline the general patterns of land tenure and its associated problems in an important unit of the Lesser Antilles, namely, Antigua

Agriculture · Archaeology · Economic geography · Geography · Land tenure · Land Rights and Reforms

• The karstlands of Antigua, their land use and conservation

  Open Access•Michael Day•Geographical Journal•2007

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