At least half of Paraguay's land is owned by foreigners. The data on land tenure provided in the agricultural census of 1991 (see bottom page 11) shows that there were 307,000 landholdings in Paraguay. Some 62% of these farms had less than 10 hectares each and owned just 2.8% of total land. The largest 884 farms, 0.3% of the total, had more than 5,000 ha each and accounted for 56% of total land. The smallest farms or minifundios averaged 1.7 ha, or less than is necessary for one family's subsistence.Mechanized farming did little to help Paraguay's overwhelming poor population: the peasants couldn't afford to invest in such farming themselves and because the practice minimized labor they had no jobs for them either.
So in November 2004, after several failed promises by the Duarte government, a group know as the National Federation of Campensios (FNC) began invading and taking land from farms greater than 30,000 ha in central San Pedro and south-central Caazapa. That same month in two separate incidents FNC members raided a police station and also killed a police officer.The land invasions were eventually put down and arrests were made on hunderds of campensios squatting on the siezed land. Also arrested was the FNC secretary-general, Odilon Espinola.
In December another FNC leader, Marcial Gomez, met with President Duarte.
...i don't know how this was resolved...
The Duarte government has since made appeals to the poor cotton farmers, offering $50 subsidies to farmers not able to sell at the minimum price. FNC rejected the offer. Duarte then upped his offer, pledging and to promote a debt refinancing program and to absorb the debts of-scale cotton producers made by purchasing agrochemicals.
Paraguay has several organizations pushing for land reforms: the National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations led by Luis Aguayo; the National Campesino Federation led by Odilón Espínola and Marcial Gomez
