Land Expropriation

Huge acreage of land, roughly 70% of Guatemala's cultivated land, was seized from poor indigenous campesinos and the church. These expropriations were to the benefit of land owners who produced "cash crops" for export, such as coffee and cattle. They also had the effect of creating large numbers of landless peasants, who were forced to migrate seasonally to work the large Latifundios, or agricultural estates. These measures contributed to one of Guatemala's most pervasive social and economic issues: concentration of land holdings. Traditionally, Guatemala has had the worst distribution of land in Latin America. Given the importance of land for the subsistence farming performed by indigenous peasants, this issue has ignited time and again into armed conflict. Today, roughly 2% of Guatemala's population controls 70% of the land.