Himikama: A promise of ownership or a pathway to rural dispossession?

On 27^th February 2026, the National People’s Power (NPP) government is to officially launched the “Himikama[1]” land title distribution program in Anuradhapura with the presence of Anura Kumara Disanayake, President of Sri Lanka, promising to provide legal ownership to thousands of long-term land occupants[2].

The initiative being presented as a historic moment of land justice. For communities that have lived for decades without formal documentation, legal recognition is undoubtedly significant. Yet history teaches us that land titling alone does not automatically lead to empowerment. In fact, under certain economic conditions, it can produce the opposite effect.

The question before us is not whether land titles should be granted. The question is whether they are being granted in a way that genuinely protects smallholder farmers, or whether they are being integrated into a market structure that will ultimately displace them.

A familiar economic logic

The logic behind Himikama reflects a broader global land policy trend that gained prominence in the 1990s and 2000s. Influenced heavily by Hernando de Soto’s argument in The Mystery of Capital (2000), policymakers across the Global South embraced the idea that transforming informal land rights into formal private property would unlock “dead capital,” stimulate investment, and reduce poverty.

International financial institutions, including the World Bank, actively promoted land titling as a development tool. In its influential report Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction (2003), the World Bank argued that formalized property rights would enhance productivity and economic growth.

However, subsequent research has shown that while titling may increase formal ownership documentation, it does not automatically protect smallholders from market pressures., it often accelerates land concentration rather than reducing inequality. Studies in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia have demonstrated that where rural economies are fragile and debt levels are high, titling can actually accelerate land sales and concentration[3].

In Latin America during the 1990s, countries such as Peru and Mexico implemented large-scale titling reforms aimed at integrating small farmers into formal markets. While titles increased formal ownership, many smallholders, facing debt and market volatility, eventually sold their land. Over time, land became increasingly concentrated in the hands of agribusiness and large investors. The promised rural prosperity did not materialize for the poorest farmers[4].

In Cambodia, post-conflict land titling programs intended to formalize property rights inadvertently facilitated rapid land transfers to powerful elites and corporations. Small farmers, once given titles, found themselves under pressure to sell due to indebtedness and lack of economic support. Today, Cambodia is frequently cited as an example of how titling without safeguards can deepen inequality and trigger land conflicts.

Even in parts of Africa, where donor-backed land registration programs were introduced to strengthen tenure security, research has shown that titling often increased land market activity without reducing rural vulnerability. In countries like Ghana and Uganda, formalization sometimes enabled land acquisition by wealthier actors at the expense of customary land users who lacked bargaining power[5].

These international experiences demonstrate a consistent pattern: when land becomes a fully commodified asset in fragile rural economies, the market favors those with capital.

Ownership without economic security

Sri Lanka today is not operating in a stable agrarian context. Smallholder farmers are grappling with rising production costs, fluctuating market prices, mounting debt, and climate instability. Public support systems have weakened. Many rural families survive on narrow margins.

In such a context, a freehold title can quickly become collateral for credit. When farmers face medical emergencies, crop failures, or loan repayments, the land title becomes their only negotiable asset. Distress sales may not appear coercive, but they are driven by structural compulsion.

International experience confirms this risk. Hernando de Soto’s theory of transforming “dead capital” into active market assets through titling was influential in many developing countries.[6] Yet subsequent empirical research revealed that formal titles alone rarely unlocked widespread prosperity. Instead, they often exposed smallholders to new financial risks without providing the institutional support needed to protect them.

Without debt relief mechanisms, affordable cooperative credit, minimum holding periods, restrictions on bulk purchases, and anti-speculation laws, Himikama may inadvertently accelerate land transfers from small farmers to larger commercial entities.

From farmers to laborers

The long-term danger is the quiet transformation of land ownership patterns. When titles are freely tradable, land begins to consolidate. Agribusiness firms, commercial plantations, and investors possess purchasing power that small farmers cannot match.

This pattern has been documented globally. In Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia, liberalized land markets contributed to the expansion of large-scale monoculture plantations, often at the expense of smallholder diversity. The outcome was not greater equity, but deeper rural inequality.

If Sri Lanka follows this trajectory, smallholder farmers may gradually lose control over their land, not through expropriation, but through market mechanisms. They may remain in rural areas, but as wage workers rather than independent producers.

Ownership in name may become labor in reality.

A political responsibility

The NPP government was elected with strong rural backing because it was perceived as an alternative to neoliberal economic restructuring. Replicating a market-centered land reform model without introducing stronger protections risks undermining that mandate.

Land is not merely an economic asset. It is the foundation of food sovereignty, social stability, and cultural identity. The United Nations recognized this in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP, 2018), which affirms the rights of peasants to land, natural resources, and protection from forced displacement. A progressive government has the responsibility to ensure that land reform strengthens rural communities rather than integrating them more deeply into volatile land markets.

If Himikama is to avoid repeating international failures, it must include enforceable safeguards: limits on land resale, protections against distress sales, ceilings on corporate acquisition, and strong livelihood support systems. It must be accompanied by investment in agroecology, guaranteed market access for small producers, and cooperative financial systems that reduce dependence on commercial lending.

Without these structural protections, Himikama risks becoming part of a global pattern where land titling, intended to empower, ultimately facilitates concentration.

A crossroads for Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka stands at a decisive moment. Himikama could strengthen tenure security while protecting smallholder agriculture. Or it could unintentionally initiate a gradual transfer of land from vulnerable rural communities to capital-intensive actors.

The lessons from Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa are clear: land reform without safeguards is not reform, it is market integration.

The danger does not lie in granting land titles. The danger lies in granting them without protection.

If the government truly intends to uphold a pro-people vision, Himikama must not become a repetition of international land policy failures. It must instead chart a different path, one that prioritizes social justice over market expansion.

Otherwise, history may record Himikama not as a program of rightful ownership, but as the beginning of a slow and silent dispossession.

By Shamila Rathnasooriya
Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR)

24^th February 2026

[1] Sinhala word “Himikama” means ownership, claim or right in English.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRxtZTnXsKE

[3] Borras, S. M., & Franco, J. C. (2012). Global land grabbing and trajectories of agrarian change. Journal of Agrarian Change, 12(1).

[4] Boone, C. (2014). Property and Political Order in Africa: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics. Cambridge University Press.

[5] Cotula, L., Vermeulen, S., Leonard, R., & Keeley, J. (2009). Land Grab or Development Opportunity? Agricultural Investment and International Land Deals in Africa. IIED/FAO/IFAD.

[6] De Soto, H. (2000). The Mystery of Capital. Basic Books.