ACQUISITION OF LAND FOR AGRICULTURAL LAND REFORM

Abstract

In Thailand, anyone may benefit from natural resources without limit, especially in land use. Although land is abundant, most of it has been traditionally owned by small group of family, while most Thais own no land, causing economic and social inequality. Land reform is an approach to resolving this issue, by distributing land from large landlords to small land owners and landless people, as well as imposing limits on the amount of agricultural land that one family may possess. But land redistribution and ceilings on landholding are available in land reform areas only, outside of which there is no legal recourse. In the latter place, one group may own quantities of land for sale or leaving undeveloped. This creates lost opportunities in Thailand for land use and improvement. Many landless people still aspire to own land, but land reform areas have insufficient land for redistribution.

This thesis studies and analyses acquisition of land for agricultural land reform. The Agricultural Land Reform Organization (ALRO) uses three sources to acquire land for land reform: 1) public land; 2) purchased land; and 3) expropriated land. These are inadequate, because most of their terrains derive from public land, insofar as it is difficult to purchase private land and they never receive expropriated land. This situation is inconsistent with the intent of the Agricultural Land Reform Act B.E. 2518 (1975) which specifies redistribution of land ownership and fairness of land holdings.

An international comparative legal study was made of other countries’ laws and regulations, including Taiwan, South Africa and the United Kingdom’s National Trust. The purpose was to find guidelines applicable for amending land acquisition legislative acts and relevant regulations for agricultural land reform in Thailand. By improving methods for land purchase and expropriation and adding more methods for land acquisition such as private land use and land tax exemption, measures may be found to promote land acquisition, such as imposing limits on the amount of agricultural land that one person may hold as well as enforcing land taxation, including repealing certain regulations preventing agricultural exploitation of land.