Hi Milford,
Holding land is sometime as function of stabilization. When I worked in Western Canada in the 1980's there was a period of economic crises that caused the credit unions to have to foreclosed and hold land. But this land was held off the market to protect the price of land which underwrote the rest of ther portfolio. It takes quite a cynical and deliberate strategy to acquire adjoining land to appropriate for speculation. The credit unions held land to protect price and rented it back to the former owner to keep the land productive and the former employed. Eventually land price recovered and the situation stabilized. A bank holding land may well be doing it to protect their own balance sheet and the community not necessarily as a land grab. Regards, Murray
From: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com [mailto:MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: March 22, 2016 9:54 AM
To: MicrofinancePractice@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [MFP] RE: Land grabbing in Cambodia via microcredit
Dear Mingyee
Thanks for your useful comment from 'an insider'. I'm still not sure of the situation, but couple things I can add as response to your comments.
First, NPL does not really need to be high, since the transfer of land titles is taken in advance of default or even in advance of just some minor repayment problems. Potentially problematic individuals can be contacted and offered the chance to exit from their repayment obligations by a simple transfer of the land title, which might be one of several they own. Second, ideally land titles should apply to adjacent landholdings, but this is not necessary, at least at the start. Land dispossession tends to be a gradual process everywhere ardour the world. Even when I working in Cambodia back in 2003 we came across examples around Tonle Sap where poor communities were gradually losing their land, bit by bit, as land titles were passed over (and ending up in the hands of property developers and hotel companies) in exchange for an extinguishment of any remaining micro debt. There were some hold-outs in one village we visited - those who refused to lose their land titles - and they were targeted later on and also harassed in other ways in order to make a bundle of land titles with fairly contiguous borders. Third, ACLEDA is on record as accepting land titles on as many 1 in 3 of its loans, so it must have learned by now what to do with the land titles coming in gradually. But we have managed to get nothing from them about this to date. This is even though there are growing numbers of accounts of villagers handing over their land titles to extinguish a microdebt and moving away, especially including to Thailand to start life again as landless labourers and factory workers, and ACLEDA's name comes up time and again in such episodes.
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Posted by: Murray Gardiner <mgardiner@temenos.com>
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