ABSTRACT
This chapter analysis of agrarian policy in contemporary Costa Rica and Honduras will demonstrate both the accomplishments and the limitations of reformism in situations of dire need. Land tenure relations in Costa Rica and Honduras before World War II were notably different from those in the rest of the region. In particular, agrarian politics in Honduras in the last few decades have been considerably more complex than those in Costa Rica, and therefore more attention will be devoted to Honduras. The foundation of Costa Rica's agrarian reform program was passed into law in 1961. A primary impetus for passage of Costa Rica's agrarian reform law was the problem of squatters; it was estimated that the country had some 16,500 squatter families in the mid-1960s, a number that grew as the decade advanced. The Costa Rican agrarian reform entered its most active phase during the mid-1970s, centering for the first time on the expropriation of property.
