Introduction to symposium: Smallholders in communist and postcommunist societies

The primary contributions of smallholders during the communist and early postcommunist periods have been food production and labour for large farms. Those conditions are changing, however, as modern farms require less labour and food supply may be imported. For most smallholders in Central and Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries, the postcommunist neoliberal environment has not brought significant improvement, and strong arguments can be made that land grabbing, social and economic exclusion, and rural poverty are worse than regime bias during the communist period. Cooperatives, which have empowered smallholders in other parts of the world, have not been as well developed in postcommunist nations.     

Delineation of property rights as institutional foundations for urban land markets in transition

This paper aims to critically reflect on establishing the new frameworks for land markets and urban land development processes in countries in transition. Based on the doctrine of the so-called ‘property rights’ school, land and property ownership has long been identified as a prerequisite for economic development. The common advice to countries in transition creating new frameworks for land markets was to assign and register property rights. The aim of this paper is to discuss the significance of the delineation of property rights, which for urban land development processes and outcomes falls mainly within the remit of land use regulations. In this paper the concept of property rights regime and its characteristics is developed in order to discuss the delineation of property rights and their relationship with urban land development process and its outcome. Process of land development is conceptualized depending on land ownership (private or public), and the role of the owner in the planning process. The outcome is discussed based on the morphological results and the provision of urban infrastructure. On the basis of empirical experience from transition period in Poland it is argued that the emphasis on private property rights in the absence of the institutional foundations of urban land market under capitalism was bound to produce urban problems. First, the new institutional foundation for urban land market was introduced subsequent to dynamic of emerging real estate market, and viable markets existed despite unsolved question of restitution of property rights. Second, the subsequent delineation of property rights is clearly linked to processes of urban land development, which follow the line of development without planning. It can also be related to the morphological results of urban development like the haphazard location of investments and lack of adequate approach to deal with the provision of urban infrastructure.     

Long run agricultural land expansion,booms and busts

Agricultural land expansion is a prominent feature in today’s developing countries. It is associated with a structural pattern of land use in many remote land-abundant regions where large-scale commercial primary product activities coexist with increased concentration of smallholders in more marginal areas. The result may be boom-bust cycles of development. If these phenomena are widespread across developing countries, then long-run expansion of agricultural land could be associated with lower levels of real income per capita, which may also fluctuate with prolonged expansion. A panel analysis conducted over 1961–2015 for 98 developing economies fails to reject this hypothesis. Policies should aim to decouple socio-economic gains through agricultural development from continued land expansion, and greater investments are needed to support smallholder agriculture, land distribution and livelihoods in these areas.     

Which smallholders are willing to adopt Acacia mangium under long-term contracts? Evidence from a choice experiment study in Indonesia

Smallholder ownership of forests has grown rapidly over the last 25 years, leading to global forest transition; however, incentives are required to keep smallholders growing trees under long-term afforestation contracts. This article reports on smallholders’ willingness to join afforestation programs, growing Acacia mangium under contract on their private farmland. In a Choice Experiment, we examine the effects of policy attributes of afforestation contracts, including contract duration, labour participation, timber insurance, training opportunities, road improvement, and expected income. We report the marginal value of changes in monetary terms. A scale-extended latent class model was used to analyse preference heterogeneity in data of 323 smallholders from three different regions in Indonesia (West Kalimantan, Yogyakarta, and South Sumatera). These regions are at different forest transition stages. Our results indicate that there are four latent preference classes, which value attributes of the contract differently. Individual characteristics (risk orientation, tree growing experiences, and occupation), and regional differences explain the probability of preference class membership. Our findings have important implications for enhancing afforestation strategies that improve social welfare of smallholders in various forest transition stages.     

Warehouse receipt financing for smallholders in developing countries: Challenges and limitations

A warehouse receipt is a document issued by a warehouse operator as evidence that a specified commodity of stated quantity and quality has been deposited at a particular warehouse by a named depositor. When backed by an appropriate legal and regulatory framework, a warehouse receipt becomes a formal financial instrument that allows the depositor to confer a security interest in the stored commodity to another party without requiring physical delivery, allowing the warehouse receipt to serve as possessory collateral for a loan. Warehouse receipt financing, in theory, permits smallholders farmers in developing countries to store their surplus safely in a modern warehouse to sell at a later date when prices are higher, while allowing them to use the stored commodity as collateral to secure a loan to finance household consumption and investment needs in the interim. However, in practice, warehouse receipt financing generally has not been embraced by smallholders in developing countries in which it is available. Here, we develop and analyze a formal stochastic dynamic model of seasonal commodity marketing that exposes the transaction cost and risk reallocation problems that undermine the benefits of warehouse receipt financing to smallholders.     

Does uncertainty exist where transparency is missing? Land privatisation in Mongolia

Land privatisation has been initiated in many transition countries to provide land ownership rights to citizens in order to facilitate the socio-economic development of the country through enhanced access to land. However, the implementation of land privatisation laws is still problematic in many transition countries because of the uncertainty involved.Mongolia is an example.The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for understanding uncertainty as it exists in land privatisation and to determine the best way to respond to this uncertainty.An extensive literature survey and a pilot study in Mongolia have shown that “transparency” is the key to understanding uncertainty and that increased transparency might be the solution required for successful implementation of land privatisation in transitional economies.The pilot study demonstrates that the current land privatisation process is incomplete and slow due to a lack of access to information, weak coordination between the organisations involved and considerable duplication in procedures.This paper concludes that access to information, participation and corruption are key elements to describe transparency with respect to uncertainty in data and processes and those elements are critical to test the following research proposition: “More transparent land allocation procedures will result in more efficient and effective implementation of land privatisation law in uncertain circumstances”.     

Soil conservation and governmental policies in tropical areas: Does aid worsen the incentives for arresting erosion?

This paper focuses on how farmers respond with respect to the adoption of soil conservation measures to governmental agricultural policies aiming at supporting smallholders. A simple micro-economic framework was chosen to undertake an analysis of farmer choices among three activities; farming, adoption of soil conservation measures and off-farm work. The model shows that governments have to be cautious when designing support measures if improved resource management is a policy goal. In the design of such measures, attention has to be paid both to (1) the distribution in land quality, and (2) the distribution in the net returns from adopting soil conservation measures.     

Impact of contract farming on yield,costs and profitability in low‐value crop: evidence from a low‐income country

Lentils, a low‐value and highly nutritious crop, are Nepal's largest pulse cash crop. However, the majority of the nation's smallholders produce lentils on very small plots of land. The large gap in lentil yields between Nepal and other lentil‐producing countries underscores the importance of improving yields and income of smallholders. When it comes to the financial viability of small farms, particularly in developing countries, and globalisation, contract farming (CF) may prove useful in achieving efficiency and profitability in smallholder lentil farms in Nepal. This study employs the propensity score matching approach to examine the effects of the adoption of CF on yields, profitability and costs of smallholder lentil farms in Nepal. Findings from this study reveal that contrary to popular belief, CF adoption by lentil producers in Nepal has a positive and significant effect on per‐hectare revenues, profits and yield and a negative impact on variable and transportation costs. The study finds that only very smallholder lentil farms (0.01‐0.05 ha) benefit from CF.     

Smallholder participation in the land rental market in a mountainous region of Southern China: Impact of population aging,land tenure security and ethnicity

Rural land rental markets in China play an increasingly important role in the transformation of the agricultural sector. This study focuses on the rural land rental market in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Southern China, a mountainous region, where rapid changes in land use have taken place with the transition from traditional agriculture and a tropical rainforest to rubber monoculture. Notably, we assess the impacts of population aging, land tenure security, and ethnicity on the participation of smallholders in the land rental market. The analysis suggests that a higher proportion of older people in a household increases the likelihood of renting out land and reduces the probability of renting in land, implying that population aging fosters land rental market development by transferring land from older to younger farmers. We also confirm that the availability of a land tenure certificate has a significant and positive impact on the renting out of land. Furthermore, ethnic minority groups are less likely to rent out land, indicating that land rental markets are ethnic sensitive. Additionally, specialization in rubber farming, household wealth and the altitude of household location also influence participation in the land rental market.     

Growing sustainable tea on Kenyan smallholder farms

This paper describes a partnership between Lipton tea and the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). The partnership aims to encourage smallholders to produce tea more sustainably and profitably. A Farmer Field School (FFS) approach was used. This has resulted in the development of high levels of social capital, and the programme has resulted in increased annual yields and a renewed focus on improved water and land management. Farmers who have graduated from FFSs have acted as extension agents themselves. Overall, the partnership provides a good example of how an FFS approach to extension has prepared the ground for a large-scale roll-out of more sustainable production practices across rural Kenya.     

The fragmented politics of sugarcane contract farming in Uganda

In the last decade, contract farming has regained momentum among policymakers and global development agencies as a tool to promote inclusive rural development and responsible investments. Integrating smallholders within global, regional and national agricultural value chains, we are told, represents the sine qua non for alleviating rural poverty. In Uganda, under the label of out-grower schemes, contract farming is currently undergoing massive expansion, driven especially by the boom in sugarcane cultivation. Drawing from three case studies of sugarcane contract farming in Uganda, the paper re-politicizes the debate around contract farming by looking at the power relations within which these schemes are embedded. We argue, what is seen in Uganda's expansion is a political dynamic derived both from the major dislocations and dispossessions required to establish the plantation estate and its work force, as well as from the effort to bring many smallholders using unimproved methods on land with sometimes unclear tenure arrangements into contracted arrangements for supplying sugarcane. The result has been highly contentious politics around sugar's expansion, where struggles over land dispossession merge with those around exploitative wage labour, around the loss and transformation of livelihoods, and around debt, power inequalities and environmental harm, a matrix in which state violence and co-optation are ever-present.     

Monitoring land governance: Understanding roots and shoots

Despite a growing interest among land use policymakers to identify the indicators that measure changes in land tenure systems, little consensus exists about what framework can functionally analyze land tenure systems, and how it should be developed. The existing indicators have mainly focused on measuring the “effects” of land tenure (in)security and often neglected the “causes”. Hence, comprehensive monitoring of land tenure systems has been poorly understood and practiced. Given their multifaceted meanings, land and its related concepts have been a challenging issue for policymakers. Accordingly, the overall objective of this paper was to propose a functional and analytical framework on how to study monitoring land governance from roots to shoots through five main studies: i) understanding the historical trajectories of land, ii) recognizing institutional arrangements on land, iii) identifying land governance grammar, iv) defining land governance typology, and v) assessing land use changes. In line with this objective, the general research question of this study is how and by whom a monitoring system should be developed. Overall, this study can be considered as a conceptual framework that has been designed to conceptualize, develop, build, and apply a functional and analytical framework for formulating land governance grammar to explain how access to land is governed. Unlike previous studies, this study focuses on both causes and effects of strong land governance (SLG) and weak land governance (WLG). The paper discusses that land governance allows various stakeholders to participate in government decisions and ensures the security of their livelihoods. However, land governance could be either poor or strong depending on the government decision-making process. The paper also concluded that SLG is a precondition for economic growth and poverty alleviation in rural areas of developing countries.     

Quantifying and understanding land cover changes by large and small oil palm expansion regimes in the Peruvian Amazon

With rapid increases in global food demand and production, oil palm expansion constitutes a major emerging challenge for forest conservation in Amazonia and other tropical forest regions. This threat is evident in the Peruvian Amazon, where local and national incentives for oil palm cultivation along with growing large-scale investments translate into accelerated oil palm expansion. Environmental sustainability of oil palm cultivation in the Peruvian Amazon is contingent on policy incentives for expansion onto already-cleared lands instead of biodiverse, high carbon primary rainforests. Previous research indicates that while industrial plantations use less land area than local smallholders, companies have a higher tendency to expand into primary rainforests. However, the motivations behind these differing expansion scenarios remain unclear. In this study we combine data from optical and radar satellite sensors with training information, field discussions, and review of public documents to examine the policy incentives and spatial patterns associated with oil palm expansion by smallholders and industries in one of Peru’s most rapidly changing Amazonian landscapes: the Ucayali region of the city of Pucallpa. Based on our satellite-based land cover change analysis, we found that between 2010 and 2016, smallholders utilized 21,070 ha more land area for oil palm than industries but industrial expansion occurred predominantly in old growth forests (70%) in contrast to degraded lands for smallholders (56%). Our analysis of national policies related to oil palm expansion reveal policy loopholes associated with Peru’s “best land use” classification system that allow for standing forests to undergo large-scale agricultural development with little government oversight. We conclude that both sectors will need careful, real-time monitoring and government engagement to reduce old-growth forest loss and develop successful strategies for mitigating future environmental impacts of oil palm expansion.     

The “sowing of concrete”: Peri-urban smallholder perceptions of rural–urban land change in the Central Peruvian Andes

Policy makers concerned with the peri-urban interface find their greatest challenges in the rapid urban growth of developing mountain regions, since limitations caused by relief and altitude often lead to an increased competition between rural and urban land use at the valley floors. In this context, little attention has been paid to the affected agriculturalists’ perceptions of peri-urban growth—important information required for the realization of sustainable land use planning. How is the process of rural–urban land change perceived and assessed by peri-urban smallholder communities? Which are the major difficulties to be overcome? By what means are the affected people reacting and how are these adaptation strategies linked with the ongoing landscape transformations of the hinterland?By using the example of Huancayo Metropolitano, an emerging Peruvian mountain city, it is shown that rural–urban land change is intensively discussed within peri-urban smallholder groups. Although urbanization also leads to infrastructure investments by public institutions—an advantage perceived throughout the study area—the negative impacts of rural–urban land use change prevail. The perceptions’ analysis reveals that the decrease of fertile and irrigated agricultural land at the quechua valley floor is especially considered to threaten subsistence, food and income security. In order to compensate the loss of production capacities, many smallholders try to expand or intensify their land use at the suni altitudinal belt: an agro-ecological zone characterized by steep and nonirrigated slopes that can actually not be used for the year-round production of crops previously cultivated at the quechua zone.     

Land expansion and growth in low‐ and middle‐income countries*

Over past decades, low and middle‐income countries have experienced considerable expansion of agricultural land, yet this effect on growth has not been examined The following paper shows that the Solow‐Swan growth model can be extended to the case whereby arable land is expanding, as originally suggested by Solow (1956). This extension indicates that land expansion boosts growth, and this effect increases with the relative share of land in income. An empirical analysis over 1990–2018 for 138 low and middle‐income countries supports this finding. The growth impact of land expansion over 1990–2018 varied significantly across the sample of countries depending on how much income was derived from land. This result explains why countries dependent on agriculture have engaged in extensive land expansion: it boosts overall growth. However, these growth benefits must be weighed against the considerable environmental costs of converting forests and other natural habitat to more agricultural land, such as increased carbon emissions, loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity, risk of disease, and impacts on local livelihoods.     

Is Portugal’s forest transition going up in smoke?

The turnarounds from decrease to expansion in forest areas that took place during the last century have been examined through the lens of forest transition theory (FTT). Among temperate and Mediterranean European countries that have seen an expansion of forest cover, Portugal stands out as the only case in which this trend has recently been reverted. In this study, we explicitly map and document the forest transition (FT) in the country over the period 1907–2006, and investigate when and where forest transition happened de facto, and which were the land use transition pathways that resulted from the shrublands, agriculture, and forest interplay dynamics. After thematic and geometric harmonization of land cover maps from 1907, 1955, 1970, 1990, and 2006, a cluster analysis established four typologies, and a transition matrix was constructed to assess land cover dynamics. We found that up to 1955, FT occurred simultaneously with agricultural expansion, as shrubland areas diminished. Afterwards, with the retraction of agricultural area and the consequential decoupling of forest management from local actors, FT gained momentum and expanded up to the 1990s. While during the first half of the 20th century, forest expansion followed the “Scarcity” and “State Policy” pathways fostered by local socio-ecological feedback loops, throughout the second half of the century forest transition was driven by exogenous socio-economic forces, following “Economic Development” and “Globalization” pathways. We show how, despite these forces, FT can be derailed by endogenous factors such as wildfires, which limited and in some areas even reverted the afforestation process, initiating a deforestation phase. Since the necessary conditions for FT (technology shift, urbanization, agriculture retraction and public afforestation programs) were available in mainland Portugal, we advance the hypothesis that critical wildfire risk governance deficits may have been responsible for arresting FT. Considering the critical role of forests and other wooded areas in supporting climate change mitigation and sustainable development, our work provides useful evidence and insights for public decision makers on previously unaddressed dimensions of FTT.     

The “left behind”: Smallholders in contemporary Russian agriculture

Smallholder production in Russia has been in decline for more than a decade. The likelihood is for continued marginalization. Smallholders confront four obstacles. First, path dependencies, which includes the fact that smallholders' production remains traditional and subsistence oriented. Second, institutions in the form of state policy restrict land and animals. Third, Russia's role in the third food regime means that smallholders are unable to help Russia's emergence as a global food superpower. Fourth, smallholders are being left behind in the ongoing technological revolution led by agroholdings. As technological advancement expands in scope, the gap between large farms and smallholders will widen.     

Smallholder Supply Response to Marketing Board Activities in a Dual Channel Marketing System: The Case of Zambia

In recent years, parastatal grain marketing boards have re‐emerged as important elements of grain markets in eastern and southern Africa, yet little is known about how farmers are responding to their scaled up activities. This article develops a conceptual model of farmers’ production decisions in the context of dual output marketing channels (government and private sector) when output prices at harvest time and the availability of one of the marketing channels are unknown at planting time. It then applies the model to the case of Zambia and uses nationally representative household‐level panel survey data to estimate the effects of the Food Reserve Agency (FRA), the government parastatal maize marketing board, on smallholder crop production and fallow land. The FRA buys maize from smallholders at a pan‐territorial price that typically exceeds market prices in major maize producing areas. Results suggest that increases in the farmgate FRA maize price raise farmer maize price expectations, which induces a supply response. Smallholders respond to an increase in the FRA price by extensifying their maize production. On average, a 1% increase in the FRA price is associated with 0.06% increases in smallholders’ maize area planted and quantity harvested. There is also some evidence that farmers reduce the area of land under fallow in response to FRA incentives but there is no evidence of reductions in the area planted to other crops.     

African Agricultural Development: Lessons and Challenges

This paper reviews what has been learned from experiences of African agriculture and hence what policy lessons may be. Views of African agriculture over the last 130 years have changed from optimism to pessimism and at least halfway back again as the performance of the sector has fluctuated. Fortunately it seems the deep pessimism about agricultural prospects expressed in the 1980s and 1990s has receded. The performance of African agriculture since 1990 suggests that neither those who doubt that any significant advances are taking place, nor those who see advances in some remarkable but perhaps isolated cases of rapid transformation of farming and agricultural supply chains, have sufficient evidence – either from national data or small‐scale studies – to support their positions. Hence policy has to rely largely on general principles and historic lessons, rather than more clearly proven propositions. Policy debates over African agricultural development may sharply divide on some topics, but there is little debate over the importance of basic conditions for agricultural development of an enabling investment climate and the provision of rural public goods. Beyond these basics, the challenge is to remedy the failings of markets that deny most smallholders access to inputs, financial services and insurance. Here opinion divides between whether to return to public provision, as with fertiliser subsidies, or whether private and collective institutional innovations will be sufficient. Recent initiatives to test and scale up the latter look promising, but most have yet to be evaluated. If agricultural development is first and foremost about establishing the basic conditions for growth, then most countries in Africa may be better placed than they have been in the past. Given the many examples that show African smallholders investing and innovating when they have the chance, then there are reasons to hope that the modest growth of production and productivity seen in the last two decades may accelerate in the future – thereby allowing African countries to make the transition from agrarian to urban economies.     

Rezoned for Business: How Eco-Tourism Unlocked Black Farmland in Eastern Zimbabwe

Eco‐tourism is undermining black smallholders' entitlement to land in Zimbabwe. In the 1890s, British administrators restrained whites from alienating the whole of the country by demarcating native reserves. In terms of this limited aim, the policy of native reserves worked. It ensured a land base for black agriculture, particularly for women and children. In the late 1980s, however, CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources) invited the tourism industry to begin operations in the lowland reserves. These ?rms have claimed land, made money and relocated smallholders. Based on economic and ecological arguments, CAMPFIRE has rede ?ned the black entitlement as merely a claim competing with those of other ‘stakeholders’. No guarantees exist for residents and cultivators. Indeed, government and NGOs are fast transforming the lowland reserves into privileged and subsidized investment zones. Held in check for a century, a new kind of settler colonialism is sweeping down from the highlands.