ABSTRACT
The ambiguity among national and international objectives is compounded by the diversity of interests pursued by agencies and organizations engaged in land reform activities. The principal international actor in land reform policies has been the United States. At policy levels, the international actors are influential but inconstant, since their interests in many other spheres of activity draw them away from land issues once some formal commitment to them has been determined. Land reform also will fail to generate the expected new rural employment unless foreign trade policies are adjusted to eliminate the distortions that have produced premature and socially harmful mechanization in much of the Third World. Advisors in the techniques of land reform seek perfection in aerial photography or the legal correctness of land titles but may be fairly dispassionate about the number of farmers relocated to a collective or newly converted into private owners.
