Agrarian Reform in

Taiwan
BSED 403 - SOCSCI
 Taiwan’s land reform was a bloodless revolution
ending the unfair distribution of land and significantly
reducing the gap between the rich and the poor. After
Taiwan’s retrocession to the Republic of China from
Japan in 1945, over 50 percent of the island’s
population was farmers, of whom 70 percent were
tenants. After a half century of colonial rule, the
Japanese land-rental system still applied. The average
share of the harvest that tenants had to turn over to
the landowner exceeded 50 percent, sometimes going
as high as 70 percent.
 Furthermore, some were “iron leases” requiring a fixed crop
quantity, regardless of land conditions or natural disasters.
Tenants toiled all year round just to give most of their harvest
to the landlord. To make things worse, leases were usually
oral. When conflicts arose, there were no written documents
to refer to, and landlords, given their higher social status,
usually won out. The system represented blatant
socioeconomic inequality.
The final goal of Taiwan’s land reform was to make all
farmers the owners of their own fields. The reform proceeded
in four stages: (1) leasing government-owned land to
tenants; (2) 37.5 percent shares on privately-owned
farmland; (3) the sale of public land to farmers; and (4)
the land-to-the-tiller program.
 Beginning in 1946, to begin balancing land supply and
demand, state-owned farmland was leased to farmers for 25
percent of the crop. Furthermore, in 1949, shares were
reduced to 37.5 percent on privately-owned farmland, based
on average harvest quantities for the previous two years.
The figure of 37.5 percent was arrived at by assuming that
the working capital provided by a farmer was equivalent to 25
percent of total production. The remaining 75 percent of the
crop was divided into two equal parts, one for the landlord
and the other for the farmer.
 In 1949, Chen Cheng, then chairman of the Taiwan Provincial
Government, pointed out to a reporter that farmers, who made up a
large percentage of the total population, work harder than anyone else,
but they sometimes could not even fill their stomachs. “The motivation
behind the 37.5-percent rent is to eliminate such unfair conditions,” he
emphasized.
Under the new arrangements, crop yields increased as tenants were
willing to invest more money in agricultural equipment and improved
farming methods. According to Ministry of the Interior statistics, in 1948,
before the rent reduction, total rice production was 1.037 million metric
tons. Following the change in 1949, the rice output rose to 1.172 million
metric tons, and jumped to 1.517 million metric tons in 1952, a 46
percent rise in four years.
 MOI figures show a 23-percent increase in income for mid-
level tenants during this period. As a result, their standard of
living and social status increased, with more of their children
attending school. The average death rate for farmers also
dropped.
As landowners’ profits from farmland decreased, land
prices went down and they began to sell off land and invest in
other businesses. A study by Taiwan’s China Research
Institute of Land Economics in 1951 showed the amount of
farmland sold in 1949 in six major agricultural counties was
20 percent more than in the previous year. This paved the
way for direct ownership of land by farmers.
 Since the government was the largest landlord of all, the
third stage of reform was to sell public farmland to tenants,
with payment spread over ten years. This policy was
implemented from 1951 through 1975, in nine phases.
According to MOI statistics, 286,000 farming households
benefited, with over 139,000 hectares of land released.
In 1953, following the 37.5-percent rent reduction and
the sale of public farmland, the government took the final
step in its land reform—the land-to-the-tiller program,
transferring land ownership from landlords to tenant
farmers.
 When ownership was transferred, landowners were
compensated over a period of 10 years, receiving 70
percent of the purchase price in land bonds to be
redeemed in kind, in rice or sweet potatoes, with
interest at 4 percent per annum. The remaining 30
percent was paid with stocks in government-owned
industries.
From 1951 to 1953, the amount of land owned
directly by farmers increased from 57 percent to 90
percent as a result of the land-to-the-tiller program,
according to MOI statistics. Taiwan’s successful land
reform has since become a model for many other
countries. (THN)