Food security, farmland access ethics, and land reform

Though reducible by known means, food insecurity remains widespread, with tightening constraints on alternative policies to address it. In this article, we argue that in many developing countries more equal distribution of land is a key, yet often neglected, policy option, and that state-led land reform remains a major, ethically defensible route for addressing food insecurity and related disadvantages. In assessing empirically and ethically redistributive land reform to smallholders, we seek to advance the debate in global food security and to make a contribution to farmland-access ethics, that is, the moral evaluation of actions, practices, policies, and laws that affect farmland distribution, allocation, and use.