Since World War II several new forms of landholding and exploitation have been tried, most of them initiated in part at least in order to overcome difficulties resulting from the existing tenure system. All of these subsidiary systems appear to be more productive than the dominant ‘freehold’ system within which they operate, thus indicating that the problems created during the first half of the century are not insuperable and that, given appropriate conditions, significant improvements could result. The most important of these, the Occupation Rights scheme, exemplifies the tremendous productivity increases which can take place when a major break-through is made in the existing tenure system, coupled with the application of modern technical facilities.

The Occupation Rights scheme

During the 1930s there was a marked decline in citrus exports. It was due in part to the low prices paid for the fruit, but principally to the fact that most of the trees were old and were suffering from a variety of untreated diseases. Being planted at random through bush and undergrowth, caring for them was arduous and time-consuming. Though the government had tried to persuade growers to prune, spray and manure their trees, the attempt had not been successful for the growers were not convinced of the efficacy of the practices expounded nor of the financial page 273 returns that would have resulted. Moreover, given the haphazard distribution of the trees it is doubtful whether efficient cultural practices could have been carried out economically, and in 1935 a new Director of Agriculture expressed the view that the existing trees should be replaced by ‘new plantations to be established in conformity with modern practices’.¹

In the following year the island fruit-growers sent two petitions to the New Zealand Parliament, as a result of which a parliamentary delegation was sent to investigate the fruit export industry at first hand. The delegation's report emphasized the need for a long-term citrus replanting scheme whereby indigenous growers would be encouraged to establish modern commercial plantations with the guidance and assistance of an expanded Department of Agriculture.² Each plot was to be on land defined by the Registrar of the Land Court to ensure security of tenure to the planter ‘in order that he may have sufficient inducement to care for his trees and harvest the crop as the rightful owner’.³ Improved processing, shipping and marketing facilities were also proposed.

The report was adopted by parliament¹ and in 1937 the government assumed control of all exporting and marketing of Cook Islands fruit.² In the same year a government nursery was established and some 23,000 citrus seedlings were grown for distribution to native growers.³ During subsequent years these and other trees were made available to interested growers along with information about the planting and maintenance of citrus orchards, but owing to inadequate attention many of them soon died out. As citrus prices were low, and as past experiences had been unfavourable, few growers were prepared to invest the effort and expenditure necessary to bring a plot into bearing on the lines recommended, and by 1945 only fifty-five orchards had been planted under the scheme, and of them all but twentysix were described as ‘fair…to hopeless’.⁴

When Judge Harvey of the New Zealand Maori Land Court visited the Cook Islands in 1946 at the invitation of the Administration, he discussed the matter of citrus replanting with growers and others at public and private meetings and became convinced that the only obstacle to the enthusiastic public acceptance of the scheme was an adequate assurance to native growers that their lands would be protected.² Legislative protection was accordingly provided and provision was made whereby multiple owners could vest any particular portion of their lands in one of their number. The vestee was to be awarded an ‘Occupation Right’ by the Land Court and thereupon became regarded as the sole owner of the land concerned for such period as he continued to occupy.³

Later experiments

Since the introduction of the Occupation Rights scheme several other experiments have been tried on a smaller scale. The first of these concerns the island of Nassau, which had since the last century been in the hands of a foreign commercial firm. In 1945 it was purchased by the New Zealand government on behalf of the people of Pukapuka for £2,000 and in 1952, after repayment of the purchase price by the Pukapukans, the island was vested in the people of that island, to be held ‘in accordance with their Native customs…’.² The Pukapukan people chose to work the island collectively and to settle approximately one hundred of their number there each year to exploit the copra. The ‘settlers’, who are changed approximately annually, are drawn from representative families.

Both Nassau and Takutea have produced much more copra per acre than has been derived from those coconut-bearing lands in the group which have been exploited on an individual or family basis. Nassau produced an average of 0.114 tons per acre during the five-year period 1955–9, and Takutea 0.059 tons. In terms of man-hours, however, the latter island was the more productive as it has only been worked for a few weeks each year. Neither island could be said to be being exploited to the optimum, and scientific management could probably increase the yield of the former island threefold and the latter fivefold or more. Nevertheless, the present output per acre of these islands is considerably higher than the average of 0.036 tons from islands where ownership and production is on an individual or family basis without central organization.¹

A royalty of three pence per cubic foot would give the grower an estimated £87.10.0 per acre, and six pence per foot would give £175.0.0 per acre, but as yet no definite figure has been agreed on. In addition to the royalty, of course, an even larger amount will be paid out for cutting, milling and transport. While income per acre from forestry will not be comparable with that from citrus or tomatoes, it must be remembered that the latter are grown on first class land and the former on ‘problem soils’ which have to date produced virtually nothing.

In February 1961 a co-operative society in Rarotonga purchased the lease, stock and equipment of the island of Manuae,¹ which had since last century been operated as a copra plantation by various European interests, its entire population being indentured from other islands for this work. The co-operative intends continuing commercial exploitation on plantation lines but is considering the possibility of establishing a permanent settlement there at a later stage.

The soils of this whole area are classed as ‘problem soils’ and have not previously been utilized to any significant extent. Therefore, as much of the initial emphasis will be on developing the soils themselves with fertilizers, cover crops and other techniques, as on producing economic crops. The plan proposes to develop and farm the whole block initially as a single management unit, but in the event of continuation beyond the five-year trial period plans will have to be evolved for the tenure of the land and the continued organization of the project.

All these experiments have several features in common. Firstly, they are associated with tenure forms which give adequate security to the land-working unit; secondly, the cultivation, planting and harvesting is centrally organized (though not necessarily executed by the organizing institution), and thirdly, in so far as credit and equipment are used, they are supplied by a single agency. It is as yet too early to predict the results of the last two experiments, but all the others have been associated with considerably higher output per acre than is in fact derived from land of equivalent types which has been exploited on an individual basis.

New patterns of work organization

In addition to the changes in work organization which are consequent upon the above legal or informal modifications to the basic tenure pattern, there have also been changes on those lands which are worked under the ‘freehold’ system of tenure. Some of these changes have also been due to problems created by the existing tenure situation.

The first change concerns what may be loosely termed entrepreneurial share farming, which is organized by a small group of Maori farmers who are sufficiently enterprising to overcome the obstacles inherent in the tenure situation. Each of these men operates tractors and other mechanical equipment, owns a trade store and transport facilities, and is able, through the supply of credit, machinery and management skills which are otherwise lacking, to make productive land which in all probability would not otherwise be utilized. Using labour which is otherwise underemployed they plant tomatoes and other short-term cash crops on lands which are idle owing to the absence of owners, disputes among co-parceners, or the inability of owners to use them. When the crop is marketed the entrepreneur gives a (usually unspecified) share of the proceeds to the most influential members of the owning group.

Most of the entrepreneurs concerned are not themselves large landowners, and all of them use principally land in which they do not have rights. If they could get more land, they claim, they would willingly exploit it. In the present situation their role is an important one and their contribution to output is considerable, for, from data examined in Rarotonga, it is estimated that the twelve largest of them are responsible for organizing the bulk of the island's tomato exports. While there are similar men on the smaller islands, they are nowhere so active as on Rarotonga.

The reduction in the size of the productive unit, which today is normally the nuclear family, resulted in part at least from changes in tenure. The role of chiefs in the organization of production is now negligible on islands other than Mangaia. It should be noted, however, that in earlier years the largest productive unit was normally the minor lineage, the head of that unit organizing the cropping and receiving payment for the product. While major lineage and tribal chiefs required their followers to plant specific crops at particular times and sometimes monopolized the marketing of the product, planting, harvesting and payment was normally a matter for the component minor lineages. The organizational role today has been taken over by the Administration in the case of citrus, the local entrepreneurs in the case of the larger quantities of tomatoes, the Island Councils to a small extent on islands like Atiu,¹ and in recent years on some islands by producers' co-operative societies.² Reduction of the productive unit from the minor lineage to the nuclear family was facilitated by the issue of land titles, by the establishment of savings bank facilities in 1912 (enabling savings to be kept individually), and by the setting up of government sponsored marketing organizations which have been widely patronized and have dealt with members on an individual basis.³

Paradoxically, however, the operation of the Court has forced a situation of increasing disparity between the land-working and the landholding units. For whereas in the pre-Court situation the residential core of the owning group was in fact the land-working group (and held superior rights to those of non-residents), Court action has resulted in a rapid expansion in numbers of ‘owners’ while the land-working unit has steadily diminished in size. It is therefore not surprising that output from individually worked ‘freehold’ land is lower, per acre and per capita, than from any of the forms of large-scale landholding and/or land-working which have been outlined in this chapter.