Land tenure security for women: A conceptual framework

While strengthening women’s land rights is increasingly on national and international agendas, there is little consensus on how to understand women’s tenure security. Analyses of women’s land rights often use very different definitions of land rights, from formal ownership to women’s management of plots allocated to them by their husbands. This paper identifies aspects of women’s tenure that should be included in indicators. It then provides a conceptual framework to identify the various dimensions of women’s land tenure security and the myriad factors that may influence it. To be able to compare women’s tenure security in different places, we need information on the context, the threats and opportunities facing tenure security, and the action arena that includes both the people who play a role in promoting or limiting women’s tenure security and the resources used in doing so.     

Drivers of perceived land tenure (in)security: Empirical evidence from Ghana

Tenure security is believed to be critical in spurring agricultural investment and productivity. Yet what improves or impedes tenure security is still poorly understood. Using household- and plot-level data from Ghana, this study analyses the main factors associated with farmers’ perceived tenure security. Individually, farmers perceive greater tenure security on plots acquired via inheritance than on land allocated by traditional authorities. Collectively, however, perceived tenure security lessens in communities with more active land markets and economic vibrancy. Plots held by migrant households and women in polygamous households are perceived as less tenure secure, while farmers with political connections are more confident about their tenure security.     

Land administration for food security: A research synthesis

Food security remains an ongoing global concern: the challenge of ensuring food availability, access, and utility for all, at all times, is yet to be met. The body of literature relating to food security is growing immensely. Land administrators are part of the discourse. Their arguments are spread disparately across academic and professional publications. The distinction between scientific work and political rhetoric is increasingly blurry: the role of land administration needs to be more concisely articulated. This paper provides a new synthesis on the relationships between land administration and food security. It undertakes a review of land administration literature relating to food security. It aims at crystallizing understandings of how land administration supports, or fails to support, food security at a conceptual level, and also the strategic and operational levels of land administration systems. The relationship between land administration and food security appears to be conceptually agreed upon; however, at operational levels the link is less evident. Conceptually, land administration is argued to deliver (and sometimes not deliver) secure land tenure, support for implementation of agricultural policies, access to credit, less litigation, easier land dealings, land taxation, land inventories, and land transaction controls. This enables (or undermines) subsistence farming, development of local agricultural sectors and markets, credit to access to non-local food markets, farm subsidization, more efficient land utilization, fairer international investments, and national food planning strategies. In general, the examined literature tends to focus on problem identification rather than system design. Additionally, the large amount of positive viewpoints need better validation in many cases. Future work needs to concentrate on examining the utility of land information and geospatial tools for food security, extracting lessons from the land administration systems of developed contexts, and improving the links at an operational level.     

Land Tenure,Tenure Security and Farm Efficiency: Panel Evidence from the Philippines

This article tests the relationships among formalised property rights, land tenure contracts and productive efficiency in farming. Using four rounds of panel data from 230 rice farms in the Philippines, we measure the effects of land tenure arrangements on farm efficiency using a stochastic production frontier model. We test for the allocative efficiency of observed land rental markets. We also test how land tenure security affects farmers' investment decisions. Results suggest that, despite the presence of formalised titles, the rental market remains inefficient at allocating land. In contrast, the unformalised tenure contracts used by farmers appear to provide tenure security.     

Investment in soil conservation in northern Ethiopia: the role of land tenure security and public programs

A double hurdle statistical analysis of 250 farms in the Tigray region of Ethiopia reveals different causal factors for soil conservation adoption versus intensity of use. Farmers' reasons for adopting soil conservation measures vary sharply between stone terraces and soil bunds. Long‐term investments in stone terraces were associated with secure land tenure, labour availability, proximity to the farmstead and learning opportunities via the existence of local food‐for‐work (FFW) projects. By contrast, short‐term investments in soil bunds were strongly linked to insecure land tenure and the absence of local food‐for‐work projects. Public conservation campaigns on private plots reduced adoption of both stone terraces and soil bunds. Whereas capacity factors largely influenced the adoption decision, expected returns carried more influence for the intensity of stone terrace adoption (measured as metres of terrace per hectare). More stone terracing was built where fertile but erodible silty soils in higher rainfall areas offered valuable yield benefits. Intensity of terracing was also greater in remote villages where limited off‐farm employment opportunities reduced construction costs. These results highlight the importance of the right kind of public interventions. Direct public involvement in constructing soil conservation structures on private lands appears to undermine incentives for private conservation investments. When done on public lands, however, public conservation activities may encourage private soil conservation by example. Secure land tenure rights clearly reinforce private incentives to make long‐term investments in soil conservation.     

Evolution of land tenure institutions and development of agroforestry: evidence from customary land areas of Sumatra

It is widely believed that land tenure insecurity under a customary tenure system leads to a socially inefficient resource allocation. This article demonstrates that the practice of granting secure individual ownership to tree planters spurs earlier tree planting, which is inefficient from the private point of view but could be efficient from the viewpoint of the global environment. Regression analysis, based on primary data collected in Sumatra, indicates that an expected increase in tenure security in fact led to early tree planting. It is also found that customary land tenure institutions have been evolving towards greater tenure security responding to increasing scarcity of land.     

Determinants of smallholder farmers' participation in banana markets in Central Africa: the role of transaction costs

A bivariate probit model was employed to jointly and separately estimate banana market participation decisions of buying and selling households in Rwanda and Burundi using household survey data. Selectivity bias was corrected for estimating the transacted volumes using Heckman's procedure. The results showed that transaction cost‐related factors such as geographical location of households, market information sources, and travel time to the nearest urban center influence market participation. Non‐price‐related factors such as security of land tenure, labor availability, off‐farm income, gender of the household head, and years of farming experience had a significant influence on the transacted volumes. Output prices had a significant correlation with sales volume, indicating price incentives increased supply by sellers. Generally, the findings suggest that policies aimed at investments in rural road infrastructure, market information systems, collective marketing, and value addition of banana products may provide a potential avenue for mitigating transaction costs and enhancing market participation and production of marketed surplus by rural households.     

Professional urban agriculture and its characteristic business models in Metropolis Ruhr,Germany

‘Low-cost specialization’, ‘differentiation’, and ‘diversification’ are three overarching business models of professional urban agriculture in developed countries. Manifold city-adjusted farm activities belong to these business models resulting in the characteristic farm heterogeneity of urban areas. This paper makes use of the business models as tool for a geo-statistical analysis to spatially investigate farming patterns in reference region Metropolis Ruhr, Germany. Additional farm interviews substantiate findings of the geo-statistical analysis by focusing on horticulture as a common farm activity towards ‘low-cost specialization’, direct marketing and participatory farming belonging to ‘differentiation’, and equestrian services as a representative of the ‘diversification’ business model. These farm activities and underlying business models concentrate and tend to spatially cluster in the metropolitan’s center where population density is highest and farmland proportion is lowest. Agriculture plays a significant role in Metropolis Ruhr cultivating about one-third of the metropolitan area, but on-going loss of farmland and short-term lease of land affect farms considerably by complicating access to land. Most differentiated and diversified farms require certain amount of farmland to be successful, which is threatened by further farmland losses along with increased competition for the remaining farmland. Long-term planning security is crucial for farms focusing on high added value crops and organic farming. Progressively emerging participatory farming activities demonstrate urban farms’ abilities to innovatively adapt to societal demands. Better knowledge on professional urban agriculture’s farm activities and business models is of importance for farms and their related advisory services to address the urban context in farm development strategies more accurately, but also for public authorities’ planning and policies in land-related decision making. Economic viability of professional urban agriculture is the key requirement for additional social, environmental, and landscape functions within urban areas.     

Does awareness about land tenure security (LTS) increase investments in agriculture? Evidence from rural households in Vietnam

Although previous studies have shown the importance to agricultural investments of awareness about land tenure security (LTS), to date, little quantitative evidence has been published regarding the effects of awareness about LTS. This study contributes to the current research by showing the causal effect on agricultural investments of awareness about LTS. In detail, we examine whether awareness about the increase in the duration of agricultural land-use rights improves farmers’ investments in agriculture. Under the new land law passed in November 2013 in Vietnam, the usage duration of annual cropland and aquaculture land increased significantly from 20 years to 50 years, which makes Vietnam a compelling case study for testing this hypothesis. We use panel data from the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) collected in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. The balanced panel data include 1834 households. Difference-in-difference with fixed effects (DID-FE) is employed to estimate the causal impacts. We find that awareness about the increase in the duration of agricultural land-use rights increases investments in irrigation/soil conservation/water conservation and the adoption of organic fertilizer, which supports the positive impacts of awareness about LTS on sustainable investments.     

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.     

Sustainable urban agriculture: stocktake and opportunities

This paper reviews research on urban agriculture which relates to the three dimensions of sustainability: social, economic and environmental. We propose that urban agriculture has three elements: urban agriculture in isolation; its interface with the people and environment within which it is situated; and its contribution to the design of built form. Additionally, we consider its scale: micro, meso and macro. The analysis draws attention to legal, social and economic constraints and opportunities. It suggests that future priorities for research should be directed towards (i) strategically identifying principles of sustainable urban agriculture that help policy makers to design resilient cities, e.g. using flood-prone areas for food and employment, and (ii) operationally trialling innovative institutional mechanisms, e.g. differential land taxes to support sustainable urban agriculture or payments for environmental services provided by urban agriculture such as carbon sequestration.     

Land tenure (in)security and crop-tree intercropping in rural Xinjiang,China

The relationship between land tenure security and long-term land-related investment is of great importance especially given the current flux in property rights systems of agricultural land in China. This paper empirically examines the role of land tenure security in farmers’ crop-tree intercropping decisions, and is based on a comparative analysis between contract land and wasteland holders in rural Xinjiang, China. Data from a survey, carried out in 2008 among 352 households in Awati County in Xinjiang, is used to estimate the factors that affect the adoption of crop-tree intercropping. The results indicate that, for those households that only have contract land, land tenure security positively affects their adoption of crop-tree intercropping. However, for those that hold both contract land and wasteland, land tenure security negatively impacts upon their adoption of crop-tree intercropping on wasteland, as the crop-tree intercropping on wasteland can increase the perceived tenure security of wasteland. The results also suggest that the comprehensive effect of labor organization on intercropping is moderate as a result of the presence of counteracting effects.     

Encountering the state through legal tenure security: Perspectives from a low income resettlement scheme in urban India

Tenure security systems—which determine who lives where and under what terms and conditions—are processes of governance that make and effect the relationship between those who confer tenure security and those on who tenure security is conferred. Yet, in dominant analyses of land and housing tenure security, and in policy recommendations for property rights and legal tenure security in developing countries, governance implications are overlooked in favour of analyses of the relative merits of different tenure systems mainly in terms of security, livelihood and economic impact. Using interview data and observations from a resettlement scheme in Ahmedabad, India, this paper empirically examines citizen-state relations in the context of a major shift from de facto (in practice) to legal tenure security and asks how do citizens who have recently come to live under legal tenure security encounter the state and make sense of it. I find a bureaucracy of tenure security that exerts control over low income citizens largely through fear. However, such control is incomplete and acts of resistance suggest an emerging ‘paralegal’ space to renegotiate tenure rules. I conclude by examining the findings through a conceptual framework that explains the relationship between state power and legal tenure security. I also discuss the need for greater scrutiny of the political effects of urban land and housing tenure systems on poor people.     

Assessing land reallocation decisions during transition in Romania

The post-socialist countries underwent dramatic changes in agricultural land ownership and production system. Former socialist collective farms have been dismantled, rural land has been privatized, and land markets have been formalized. Nevertheless, more than a decade later farming associations still persist in the choices that landowners make in terms of land reallocation despite collective action problems and the availability of leasing-out land as a close substitute. While the decision of farming the land individually has been well understood, there is less research on why landowners join farming associations rather than participate in land transactions. The paper examines this question using household survey data from the two largest agro-regions in Romania. I find that farming associations constitute a good land reallocation option for landowners that are resource constrained but are still willing and able to be engaged in farming. Associations provide security of tenure and capital access, allowing landowners to draw on the benefits of scale economies. Leasing-out is a viable alternative for younger landowners who can engage in non-farming activities and for older landowners with limited farming abilities.     

Impact of land tenure on land use in low-income countries

The role of land tenure in agricultural development has been a subject of intensive research, particularly within the context of land and agrarian reform. The complexity of the world's major land tenure systems is well recognized and no attempt is made here to go beyond an overview as this paper limits itself to the impact of land tenure on land use in low income situations. Present land use is determined by a host of factors, of a physical/biological and socioeconomic nature. In applying land evaluation, the question it is necessary to ask is to what extent, when and where land tenure conditions act as a considerable constraining factor impeding a more optimal use of land resources. Even in what used to be low-population density areas (such as Sub-Saharan Africa) it appears that the frontier phase is becoming exhausted and the intensification of agriculture proceeds; it becomes imperative to examine land tenure in relation to land use implications. It is shown that so far a multi-disciplinary approach has often been lacking in treating land tenure and related issues.     

Assessing the sustainability of vegetable production practices in northern Ghana*

Urban vegetable production is an intensive agricultural strategy through which urban dwellers secure income and improve their livelihoods. An ethnographic study was conducted in Tamale, Northern Ghana, to understand whether vegetable gardening was a sustainable form of intensification. The study used an updated version of the Food and Agricultural Organization’s International Framework for Evaluating Sustainable Land Management. Accordingly, qualitative data were collected on the security and access to land, political acceptability and human and environmental health implications of urban patch farming. Changes between 2008 and 2014 in the spatial area of the vegetable sites were measured. Cabbage farmer incomes were quantified. The study found that urbanization has prompted an increase in the cultivation of highly profitable vegetables like cabbage. However, they are irrigated with grey and waste water while eaten raw. This, and the use of pesticides in high dosages, poses health and environmental hazards. Industrial growth has reduced the area of open space urban agriculture by 8.7% between 2008 and 2014. Farmers cope with this by cultivating on interstitial spaces and moving to periurban fringes. There, farmers develop institutional liaisons to gain access to intensification technologies and commercialize their production. This production system is dynamic but not yet sustainable.     

Changes in land use, land tenure, and landscape fragmentation in the Tijuana River Watershed following reform of the ejido sector

Changes in land use and land tenure can influence both physical fragmentation and ownership fragmentation of landscapes, with implications for biodiversity. In this study, we evaluated changes in land use and land tenure in the Tijuana River Watershed, a region of high biodiversity and endemism, following the implementation of a new Agrarian Law which allowed for privatization and sales of communal land (ejidos) beginning in 1992. In order to understand changes in land use and cover, we constructed maps from aerial photographs and Aster images and measured changes between 1994 and 2005. In order to understand changes in land tenure, we collected data from Mexican government sources on ejido land size, ownership, and sales, and we conducted 55 structured interviews with ejidatarios in the watershed. Our results demonstrate that land-use/cover change between 1994 and 2005 was dominated by an increase in urban area and grasslands, and a decrease in coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and, to a lesser degree, agriculture. In particular, the conversion of coastal sage scrub has left a far more fragmented landscape than existed in 1994. In addition, most of the ejidos in the watershed, as well as individuals interviewed, had participated in some stage of the land certification and titling process allowed by the new Agrarian Law, resulting in substantial changes in land tenure. However, land tenure security appeared to play a larger role than a desire to sell land and, contrary to studies from other regions, full title to the land was obtained in a range of urban and rural settings, rather than primarily on land closest to urban zones. Our results suggest that past predictions regarding future urban growth and fragmentation of native vegetation in the region have proven accurate and highlights regions of change that merit further study.     

What tenure security? The case for a tripartite view

In the face of advancing urban informality in the developing world there appears to be increasing consensus that tenure security is an important engine driving settlement development. This has, however, not led to a consensus about what tenure security exactly entails. In both theory and policy, the idea of tenure security for low-income settlement dwellers is encountered in three distinct forms: tenure security as perceived by dwellers, tenure security as a legal construct and de facto tenure security. The main argument of this paper is that much controversy that surrounds the debate arises precisely as a consequence of the indiscriminate use of these different kinds of tenure security. To address this problem, a tripartite conceptualization of tenure security that incorporates its three constituent components (perception, de jure, de facto) and clarifies their interrelations is presented.     

Perennial grain crops in the West Soudanian Savanna of Mali: perspectives from agroecology and gendered spaces

Perennial grain crops may play an important role in environmentally sound and socially just food systems for Africa. We study the future possibility of integrating perennial grains into Malian farming systems from the perspective of agroecology, and more specifically using a gendered space approach. We interviewed 72 farmers across the sorghum-growing region of Mali. We found that perennial grains offer a vision for transforming human relations with nature that mirrors the resource sharing of customary land tenure, including patterns of extensive and intensive land use in time and space. Women interviewees identified a broad set of potential advantages and challenges to perennial grain production. Advantages include reduced labour, saving seed, and improving food security. Women farmers were concerned about livestock, water access, and resource limitations. We argue that perennial grains may increase access to land and natural resources for women farmers. Perennial grains may improve soil quality, reduce labour early in the rainy season, and provision more resources from fallow lands. Pastoralists stand to benefit from improved pastures in the dry season. We conclude that investments are needed to develop viable crop types in consideration of the complexity of West African farming systems and the local needs of women farmers and pastoralists.     

Property rights, production technology, and deforestation: cocoa in Cameroon

In this article, we use a vintage‐capital model with risk of eviction to assess cocoa farmers' response to changes in their tenure security and to the introduction of a new, faster‐maturing cocoa variety. The model is calibrated with data from Cameroon in calendar year 2000, and then used to simulate the effects of institutional and technical change on farmer welfare and deforestation rates. Our findings can be summarized in three points. First, improved tenure security over cocoa fields increases farmers' consumption and welfare, but at the expense of more deforestation. Second, the introduction of new cocoa varieties with faster maturity and higher input response also unambiguously raises farmers' consumption and welfare. Doing so increases deforestation under insecure land tenure, but slows down deforestation under secure land tenure. Third, when introducing the two innovations together (more security and also new varieties), there is both an increase in welfare and a decline in deforestation. In sum, the availability of new cocoa cultivars calls for stronger tenure security, to accommodate investment in the new technology without increasing deforestation.