Why did land reform begin in Iraq after the 1958 revolution?

Following the 1958 revolution in Iraq, the new government introduced the Agrarian Reform Law of 1958 to address significant socioeconomic disparities in the countryside. The primary objective of this land reform was to redistribute agricultural land by limiting the maximum amount of acreage an individual could own and distributing the excess land to peasants.1

This policy was part of a broader effort to improve the conditions of the peasantry and foster a more equitable distribution of resources. However, the implementation of these reforms faced persistent challenges. A decade after the law was enacted, less than half of the designated land had been distributed. Subsequent revisions to the law, such as those in 1969 and 1970, attempted to further support the peasantry by abolishing compensation payments to landowners and aiming to better correlate rural and urban development. Despite these legislative efforts, the results remained disappointing due to difficulties in maintaining a stable farming population and an inability to significantly improve the quality of agricultural production.1