An Antiguan farmer put it this way: “Just giving a man a piece of land and not providing other facilities like water... I think farmers will still find themselves in a lot of trouble.” These words summarize some recent research findings on Caribbean land tenure.

The researchers to whom the farmer’s opinion was directed were trying to discover the actual and potential impact of land reform in Antigua and Montserrat on agricultural and, generally, economic development. The research conducted by the Faculty of Law of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica, and funded by IDRC suggested that the security of tenure available to farmers through government land settlement schemes was not sufficient to maximize such development.

According to the research team headed by Caribbean land law expert Dr Nick Liverpool, the situation is disappointing. “The existing land settlement schemes do not and indeed cannot achieve those objects of modern economic uplifting in their present form.” But the situation is also encouraging, according to Dr Liverpool, “because the scope for innovation, improvement. and modernization is so easily within the reach of the Governments... if only they were willing to take advantage of the general desire for reform since most of the agricultural land in both countries is owned by government.”