Sometimes I think about what it were like if land rights were structured as limited-term exclusive-use licenses. The licences are offered in recognition of the fact that it takes time and money to develop the land, so the licensee, by taking on this risk, should be allowed to try to earn back that value and then some. But after a certain point exclusive use seems to be an excessive reward, so the term should be limited somehow -- I haven't been able to think up a good way this part should work. In many cases, there's a natural limit to land ownership (we only live so long), but corporate land ownership is able to extend normally limited licenses into perpetuity...
I read that many ancient farming societies used lottery to rotate which farmers used which plots each year.
You know, there's an unfair advantage if you get access to the best land and then that grows you the best crops and then profit and so on. So, everyone gets chances to farm different plots.
I agree with you about the problems with corporate land ownership.
philosophers have been thinking about more fair ways to manage resource ownership for quite some time. Mutualists, for example, have a construct similar to what you're describing called a usufruct where land rights are granted directly to the person or group working the land (ie, you cannot own land you do not work), and you only have the right to use and profit from the land, without any right to destroy it.
