A Lifetime of Changemaking Through Intelligent Land Reform

As more and more new social enterprises stake out areas of benefit, and as the number of changemakers increases around the world, there is an ever-growing amount of people that always have a few names and stories forever floating in the back of their minds – patrons saints and inspirational stories, if you will – names like Bill Drayton and Muhammad Yunnus, stories like Ashoka, Grameen Bank, and more recently, TOMS. We’ve certainly touched on these names several times before on the blog, but there’s a name that is decidedly absent from most peoples’s lists, and it belongs to a man whose tale is so amazing it’s a wonder there isn’t a film about him.

Picture this story:

A law professor with a conscience reads an article about land reform through land seizure and that professor has a better thought – sign the land over to the people that already live there. Giving people the title to their own land not only helps people be pride-driven, it encourages development through the surety that no one else can take that land away, and it encourages people to work harder for themselves.

The professor then puts pen to paper and writes a professional piece on enabling the poorest of the poor, usually farmers, through land ownership. The argument does not go unnoticed, and suddenly the professor finds himself on the other side of the world, testing his idea.

It works.

Over a million people have been helped in one country alone, before the professor’s own organization can be founded. In time, with the support of schools, socialites and like-minded people, the same program of land-reform has been adapted to help millions of people in over 40 countries – usually at the behest of the people’s own government – and that professor has been honored for his effort many a time, including nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize on two occasions.

It may sound like a modern tale, a story so recent you just haven’t heard about it yet, but it certainly isn’t.

Professor Roy Prosterman wrote his article back in 1966, and the U.S. government had him in Vietnam to test the theory by 1967. Prosterman’s own organization claims that Prosterman’s plan for land reform “led to a 30% increase in rice production and an 80% decrease in Viet Cong recruitment where it was implemented.”

Soon Prosterman was being called upon by countries around the world for aid. With over 40 years of work under his belt, we could barely make a dent in covering all this man has done in one blog, let alone three or four. There’s a good timeline here.

Prosterman has helped people on every populated continent – in 1981 he founded RDI, the Rural Development Institute, to help oversee the implementation of his plan worldwide. Just this year the RDI became the new organization, Landesa, and doubled in size to be able to extend its reach. The most recent focus has been farmers losing their land in China.

Working with the RDI and traveling the world, however, did not stop Prosterman from writing books and professional articles, nor did it take him away from his teaching at University of Washington. Several former students have gone on to become part of the organization, including current CEO (and sometimes co-author with Prosterman) Tim Hanstad.

RDI, now Landesa, has grown not just to extend its reach into other countries, but over time has even adapted its focus to include Women’s Land Rights – pointing out quite aptly, “Women do 60 – 80 percent of the farming in developing countries, yet only 2 percent of the world’s land is owned by women.”

Match a great idea for helping the worlds poorest people with organization with very adept leadership and help both from schools and colleagues like Bill Gates, Sr.,  back that up with funds from organizations like Google and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and you have Landesa – an organization that is running strong today, and most assuredly has many great stories to tell. In any country this changemaker has worked in, the possibilities for media are endless; it’s almost surprising how little there is to be found.

And while the most moving pieces of purpose-driven media usually focus on those whom a changemaker has helped the most, in this case the founder himself is also a fantastic story – a story that is still going. Roy Prosterman and Landesa are changemakers with a long future ahead of them, so much the better for the world. Together, they are two more names that should be kept in mind by every aspiring changemaker.