agriculture

• agricultural reforms were a top priority of the government
• socialists believed reforming it would help rural poverty
• the gov believed reforming farming would modernise the economy and be a step towards reform of the whole economy
• initial reforms in 1931:

  • legal right to paid overtime
  • 8 hour working day for labourers
  • wage disputes settled by committee (made up of workers and landowners)
  • small tenant farmers could no longer be evicted from their farms
• April 1931 : Law of Municipal Boundaries. landowners had to recruit farmers from the local area instead of cheap migrant farmers
• May 1931 : Law of obligatory Cultivation. increased employment by forcing landowners to use their land for arable purposes. Those who didn't do this , risked losing their land.
• Agrarian Reform Law : 1932 - large landowners could keep 23 hectares of land but any land over that amount was brought by the government and given to peasant farmers with smallholdings that could generate an income to lift them out of poverty.
• effects of Agrarian Reform Law:

  • failure
  • Institution of Agrarian Reform acted too slowly , lacked funding ( had budget of 50 million pesetas which was 1% of the gov's budget)
  • only resettled 4,400 peasants , only 10% of those that gov thought needed help
• reforms flopped as gov had no way of enforcing the new rights , such as 8 hour day
• landowners were hostile of the laws in 1931 and 1932 , began to support right groups that opposed the republic.
• if landowners ignored the reforms , workers could join the FNTT (socialist landworker's federation.) This helped workers defend their rights
• reaction from left for agrarian reform:

  • criticism from FNTT as gov had raised expectations for land workers
  • socialists and UGT (spanish workers union) demanded new reforms that would evenly redistribute land
• reaction from right for agarian reform:

  • creation of CEDA
• CEDA :

  • led by Gil-Robles
  • right-wing
  • often spoke out against the reform and critic of 1931 constitution
  • support for CEDA grew in areas affected by the reforms e.g Castile , Aragon , Andalucia
• CEDA claimed that the reforms would drive down price of wheat and plunge smaller farms into poverty. called for increase in price of wheat - futile as would only lead to higher profits for large landowners and make no difference to landworkers income
• right wing press began campaign against agriculture minister , Marcelino Domingo - he was to blame for poverty of small farmers. Very successful