Agrarian Reform in Iraq: Some Political and Administrative Problems
| Date | 01 April 1966 |
| Author | Nimrod Raphaeli |
| Published date | 01 April 1966 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1966.tb00259.x |
Agrarian Reform in Iraq:
Some Political and Administrative
Problems
By
NIMROD
RAPHAELI
Dr.
Nimrod
Raphaeli is a Research Fellow at the University of Michigan.
Introduction
'LAND
TENURE,' wrote Fahim Qubain in 1958, 'is the human problem par
excellence
in Iraq. In one way or another, it liesbehind most,
if
not all, of the
social, economic and political problems of the country.'! Elsewhere, Miss
Doreen Warriner suggests two definitions of land reform. One definition,
restricted, definesland reform as the distribution of land among small farmers
and agricultural workers. A wider definition would cover 'any improvement
in economic institutions." In this paper we shall be concerned with the
narrower aspects of land reform in Iraq.
According to the results of the 1958-59 agricultural census in Iraq, the
total area of all types of land, excepting wagj, 3miri sirj,4and unsettled land,
was 23,327,259 dunams,! distributed over 168,346 agricultural holdings.
Thus the average size of the agricultural holding was 138.6 dunmas or about
ninety acres. However, the average size of the holdings varied greatly from
one province (liwa) to another - the largest, 946.8 dunams, in Kut liwa and
the smallest, 14.9 dunams, in Basrah liwa.
The
census showed that there were
3,419 holdings of 1,000 and more dunams, these big holdings covering be-
tween them an area of 15,855,571 dunams. This meant that two per cent of
land owners owned about 68 per cent of the total area of holdings.6
The
obvious inference is that the majority of the agricultural population did not
own the land it cultivated.
The
power of the small minority of landlords was so great and its influence
so overwhelming that agrarian reform of any significance was out of the
question. On the contrary, the monarchical regime of the day, reliant as it
was on feudal landlords, justified its land tenure on efficiency grounds.
The
real issue against land reform was not however agricultural efficiency, but
political expediency. As was pointed out, 'to dispossess the holders of land
1Fahim Qubain, The Reconstruction of Iraq (New York: Praeger, 1958), p. 80. See
also Abdul Razzak al-Hilali, nadharat fi islah al-rif (Observations on Rural Reform)
(Beirut:
Dar
al-Kashaf, 1950), pp.
20
if.
2Doreen Warriner,
'Land
Reform and Economic Development,' in Carl K. Eicher
and
Lawrence W.
Witt
(eds.) Agriculture in Economic Development (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), p.
272.
3Lands
that
are bequeathed for religious and charitable institutions.
4State lands.
5 1
dunam
equals
0.6II776
acres.
8Republic of
Iraq,
Statistical Abstract, 1960 (Baghdad: 1961), p, 86.
102
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