7 - Alternative models of land reform have been experienced with success, notably the Community Managed Agrarian Reform Project (CMARP) and some forms of Alternative Venture Agreements (AVAs)5. Their common distinguishing feature is that they minimize the risk of breaking-up the existing relationship (or bond) between beneficiaries and landowners. In several cases, this relationship has been an important asset in the successful transfer of land ownership and should be regarded as an important opportunity for ARBs to progressively develop their entrepreneurial skills. Moreover, as shown under the Community Managed Agrarian Reform Project, LGUs have proved capable of assuming an effective mediating and bridging role during negotiations between landowners and beneficiaries. In all of the above instances, the degree of empowerment of the beneficiaries is magnified by their enhanced role in the transfer of land rights and by fully incorporating land reform in local development dynamics. In Negros, there are recent experiences of beneficiary cooperatives that enter into management contracts with established agribusiness firms. The experiences show that a sustainable process of beneficiary empowerment is possible6. While lands are typically rented back to the agribusiness firms, beneficiaries receive in addition to the rent a regular source of employment, access to social security benefits, access to output and credit markets and technology, and a share of the business revenues. These arrangements substantially reduce the many uncertainties that farm workers face when becoming ARBs, particularly the limited capacity of CARP to provide support services. 8 - The current system of agrarian conflict resolution represents one of the major bottlenecks to CARP completion. The system is cumbersome and inefficient and works to the advantage of landowners. The reforms currently proposed to reinforce the current system of agrarian justice, based on the concept of mediation, will not solve the problem. They might actually complicate it further by adding an additional layer of bureaucracy in an already too cumbersome process of dispute resolution. Lack of career paths among involved staff and weak incentives reduce the effectiveness of the current tools for conflict resolution. A bolder approach is necessary to tackle this complicated yet vital issue.
member of a credit cooperative greatly improves access to formal credit (10%), while being in an ARC increases it by almost 4%. 5 The CMARP was a pilot project carried out under the Agrarian Reform Community Development Project 2. The distinguishing feature of CMARP is that it complements the Voluntary Land Transfer modality of land distribution with a closer participation by LGUs and local communities in the negotiation between landowners and beneficiaries. The volume and composition of support services delivered will depend on the degree of success of the negotiations. The pilot was carried out in 10 different communities across the Philippines and it involved an area of approximately 1,000 has. All indicators were more than satisfactory at the end of the project, including the timeliness of repayment of agrarian debt by beneficiaries, the lower cost of the transferred land, and the greater sense of security and empowerment displayed by beneficiaries. 6 Good examples are the sugarcane cooperative managed by the Hermanos Gamboa company in San Carlos and the KWASI Cooperative in Kabankalan. 3