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.     

Tenure security,land registration and customary tenure in a peri-urban Accra community

The study examines the strategies that people use to secure their interests in land in a peri-urban Accra customary community. In a contested chieftaincy, customary leaders sell agricultural and virgin land to strangers for residential purposes, causing conflict and altering traditional livelihoods, and the proceeds of the sales do not flow to members of the lineage group. Violence and murder, involving land guards hired to defend different land claims or to drive farmers off their land, have occurred. The case confirms theory describing the behavioural patterns to be expected during major social change typically found in peri-urban areas when government is unable or unwilling to enforce the law. The flexible, negotiable rules characteristic of customary systems can be manipulated by individuals seeking power and control over land. Accepting that customary land administration is here to stay, the case supports the view that the customary system needs major reform to incorporate local-level checks and balances on land administration to make customary leaders accountable as fiduciaries. In terms of registration usage theory customary landholders in the study area saw title deeds as marginally useful in their agricultural lands but not in family compounds, whereas for strangers registration is essential.     

Land tenure and land reform: past and present

This article looks at land reform in history and compares it to the present. The primary concern is the relationship between land tenure and economic development, and land reform and the distribution of income, wealth and power. The main finding—that dispersed ownership and management correlate with economic development—is unsurprising. But it is more difficult to assess how conditions which are conducive to maximal production come about, or how a society shifts from concentrated power over land and labour to a dispersed tenure system.     

Measuring the production efficiency of alternative land tenure contracts in a mixed crop-livestock system in Ethiopia

In this paper, we test the hypothesis that land held under varying configurations of property rights will be farmed at different levels of production efficiency. Production data were collected from 477 plots in a fairly productive, mixed fanning system in the Ethiopian highlands. Interspatial measures of total factor productivity, based on the Divisia index, were used to measure the relative production efficiency of three informal and less secure land contracts (rented, share-cropped and borrowed) relative to lands held under formal contract witli the Ethiopian government. Although the informally-contracted lands are farmed 10-16% less efficiently, the analysis indicates that farmers of such lands actually apply inputs more, rather than less, intensively (i.e., more inputs per unit of land). The gap in total factor productivity thus results from the inferior quality of inputs (or lack of skills in applying them) rather than a lack of incentive to allocate inputs to mixed crop-livestock farming. For this reason we find no empirical basis to support the hypothesis that land tenure is a constraint to agricultural productivity.     

Market-based grazing land transfers and customary institutions in the management of rangelands: Two case studies on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Beginning in the early 1990’s, grazing lands once held in common were contracted to individual households in the rangeland regions of China. The resulting fragmentation of rangelands has led to ecological and social problems. As China seeks to address intractable poverty and rangeland degradation, attention has turned to rental, or transfer, of contracted grazing land as a market-based approach to re-aggregating grazing land into larger units that support economies of scale. However, given that many pastoral regions still maintain community customary institutions, what the relationship between market mechanisms and local customary institutions should be in rangeland management needs further analysis. This paper applies comparative case studies of two types of relationships between market mechanisms and customary institutions: (1) market mechanisms that replace customary institutions in the case of Axi village, and (2) market mechanisms that are embedded within customary institutions in Xiareer village. This allows contrast of the impacts of differing approaches on livelihoods, livestock production, and wealth differentiation among pastoral households. We found that there is a higher level of livestock mortality, lower livestock productivity, and higher livestock production cost in Axi Village compared to Xiareer Village. In addition, household asset levels are higher and there is less income differentiation in Xiareer Village. It is concluded that embedding market mechanisms within customary institutions has had notable benefits for the herders of Xiareer Village, because it is a better fit to the coupled pastoral social-ecological system. Based on these findings, we argue that in pastoral communities where the rangeland transfer system for contracted grazing land has not yet been implemented, it is critical to reconsider China’s current policy approach to pay greater attention to the innovative management systems being developed in local regions. Instead of considering market-based approaches as oppositional to traditional institutions, options that derive from the interaction of market-based and customary institutions should be considered.     

Dynamics of youth access to agricultural land under the customary tenure regime in the Techiman traditional area of Ghana

This paper investigated youth access to agricultural land under customary land tenure in Ghana. Using Techiman Traditional Area as a case study, the study applied multiple sampling techniques in a multi-stage sampling process to select the study communities and respondents. A total sample of 455 youth respondents and 23 elders were covered in twenty peri-urban and rural communities. The study revealed that irrespective of whichever mode (market or non-market) the youth employed to access agricultural land, in rural or peri-urban areas, there were constraints to their land sizes. Majority of the youth, both indigenes and migrants, held small land sizes of 1–3 acres for farming purposes. The underlying causes were two-fold: demand-related such as high cost of accessing land and competition from residential developers and supply-related such as unwillingness of the elders to release land and increasing scarcity of productive family land, among others. It is thus the conclusion of the paper that more research should be conducted across the country into youth access to agricultural land under customary tenure as a means of formulating an evidence-based youth agricultural land access policy for the country. There is also the need for public education of customary authorities to sensitize them on the need for making land accessible to the youth for agricultural purpose.     

Land tenure and management reforms in East and Southern Africa – the case of Botswana

Since attainment of independence, almost every country in East and Southern Africa has introduced some kind of land reform aimed at reconciling indigenous land tenure practices and those introduced by colonial regimes. The reforms have centred on modification of tenurial rules on access, ownership, administration and transfer of land rights coupled with land redistribution and/or restitution in some countries. With the exception of a few countries, such as Botswana, land reforms have largely remained on statute books with little to show on the ground. The paper gives an overview of land reforms in East and Southern Africa, taking Botswana as a case study. It notes that although Botswana has largely been successful in implementing land reforms, it is currently experiencing land tenure problems, especially in peri-urban settlements and inner city low-income areas, despite government's enhanced control over local land administrative structures. The paper ends with suggestions on how to contain the current problems.     

Land tenure systems and agricultural innovation: The case of alley farming in Nigeria

Alley farming is an agroforestry technology which requires access to land and the rights to plant, own and utilize trees. This paper considers the implications of land tenure systems in south-west and south-east Nigeria for the acceptability and viability of alley farming. Considerable variation in the rules governing the use and control of land is seen to exist within and between the two regions, and any one tenure system may include a number of categories of land to which different patterns of use and tenure apply. Broadly speaking, tenants in parts of south-west Nigeria may be disadvantaged as their rights over hired land do not necessarily include the right to plant trees. In the south-east, the existence of communal systems of landownership and management on some categories of land undermines the ability to plant trees and the incentive to invest labour in the maintenance of soil fertility.     

Optimal farm size in an uncertain land market: the case of Kyrgyz Republic

This article applies a real options model to the problem of land development. Making use of the 1998–2001 Kyrgyz Household Budget Survey, we show that when the hypothesis of decreasing return to scale holds, the relation between the threshold value of revenue per hectare and the amount of land cultivated is positive. In addition, the relation between the threshold and the amount of land owned is positive in the case of continuous supply of land and negative when there is discontinuous supply of land. The direct consequence is that, in the first case, smaller farms will be more willing to rent land and exercise the option where, in the second case, larger farms will exercise first. The results suggest three main conclusions: (i) the combination of uncertainty and irreversibility is an important factor in land development decisions, (ii) farmer behavior is consistent with the continuous profit maximization model, and (iii) farming unit revenue tends to be positively related to farm size, once uncertainty is properly accounted for.     

Technical efficiency in paddy farms of Tamil Nadu: an analysis based on farm size and ecological zone

Despite the wider application of efficiency analysis in Indian agriculture, little has been done on the investigation of intra and interecological variations, size differences and their interactions. However, ecological issues have paramount implications for the low-input sustainable agricultural production. Furthermore, due to the various causes of efficiency, the age-old size-based debate on efficiency differences is not yet resolved. The present study examines the level of technical efficiency across ecological zones and farm size groups in paddy farms of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The study showed that 90% of the variation in output among paddy (IR-20) farms in the state is due to differences in technical efficiency. Land, animal power and fertilisers have significant influence on the level of paddy production. Varying from 0.59 to 0.97, the mean technical efficiency was found to be 0.83. The use of F-test in two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and censored regression (Tobit model), with dummies for ecological zones, farm size groups and their interactions, has shown that, at mean level, the level of technical efficiency among paddy farms of the state differs significantly across agro-ecological zones and size groups as well, The study further indicated that small-sized paddy farms in zone II and medium-sized paddy farms in zone III are represented by ecologically size-biased production techniques; thus achieving higher technical efficiency.     

Population pressure,rural-to-rural migration and evolution of land tenure institutions: The case of Uganda

This study examines the evolutionary process of land tenure systems in Uganda from communal to private ownership with a special attention to the role of rural-to-rural migration as a key driving force. By tracing migration patterns using unique longitudinal household survey data containing detailed information on land tenure and migration history, we found that immigrant-dominated communities have a higher incidence of private land ownership even after controlling for population density and market access. We also found that land markets are more active in immigrant-dominated communities and that private land ownership results in higher agricultural productivity.     

Factors influencing the use of alternative land cultivation technologies in Swaziland: Implications for smallholder farming on customary Swazi Nation Land

Poor land preparation and late planting are among the factors responsible for the decline in food production on customary Swazi Nation Land (SNL). While efforts are being made to develop an improved national land cultivation programme, this process can be helped by identifying factors that influence farmers to use alternative technologies for land cultivation. Using cross-section data collected in 2009 from a random sample of 210 farmers in Komati, three land cultivation technologies were identified; (i) use of tractors; (ii) use of draught animals; and (iii) use of hand hoes. For a country like Swaziland where human health problems, particularly HIV/AIDS, make manual labour a scarce resource, the use of tractors is regarded as a modern technology that can achieve time and labour savings. The empirical evidence from this study indicates that the use of tractors is significantly influenced by household wealth and size of arable land used by households. However, given that land holdings on customary land are generally small, sparsely distributed and often fragmented, tractor hire service providers face relatively high overhead and transaction costs. Furthermore, investment in mechanised farming by individual SNL households is constrained by the lack of secure tenure. Given these challenges, this study makes recommendations for creating an enabling environment that could promote the adoption of improved land cultivation methods by smallholders on customary SNL.     

Exploring the evolution of land tenure and land use change in Panama: Linking land policy with development outcomes

In this paper I discuss the linkages between land use management and land use change, as well as the impacts of land use policies at the local level. Specifically, I suggest the current land tenure regime in Panama is the outcome of a path-dependent process that includes a Spanish legacy of land tenure institutions and beliefs, a policy-making process that responds to immediate or short-term development outcomes, and the broader political economic context. First, I introduce theoretical perspectives on land policy and development. These are followed by a narrative of the evolution of land tenure in Panama, in the context of develoment processes and land policies in Latin America. In the final section, with the case of lifestyle migration to Bocas del Toro, Panama, I illustrate how the pathways between land management and land use, in the context of political economic development drivers and outcomes, have significant local outcomes.     

Decent rural employment and farm production efficiency: empirical evidence from Tanzania and Ethiopia

Promoting decent rural employment, by creating new jobs in rural areas and upgrading the existing ones, could be one of the most efficient pathways to reduce rural poverty. This article systematically investigates the impact of decent rural employment on agricultural production efficiency in Ethiopia and Tanzania. The analysis applies an output‐oriented distance function approach with an estimation procedure that accounts for different technological, demographic, socioeconomic, institutional, and decent rural employment indicators. Data of the 2011 round of Living Standards Measurement Study‐Integrated Surveys on Agriculture for the two countries are used, and a set of indicators is derived to proxy core dimensions of decent rural employment. The findings of our analysis show that decent rural employment contributes to agricultural production efficiency.     

From male to joint land ownership: Women's experiences of the land tenure reform programme in Rwanda

During the post‐genocide period, the Government of Rwanda embarked on a land tenure reform programme that culminated in a land registration and titling process in 2009. This paper intends to capture women's experiences in relation to this programme. The empirical data were collected in Musanze District using a household survey, semi‐structured interviews, and focus group discussions. The main findings reveal that there is support of the general idea that women should benefit from the land tenure reform in Rwanda. However, there is some criticism towards parts of the land laws, and women have limited actual knowledge about land‐related laws. With land titles, women mostly have a say on the land use decisions requiring each of the spounses' legal consents but not on the daily management of land and its produce. Finally, the paper reports the persistence of social norms and culturally biased gender ideologies affecting the effective implementation of land‐related laws and policies. Therefore, the paper underscores the need to build the implementation of new laws and policies on a good understanding of customary practices to strengthen women's land rights in Rwanda.     

Modeling farm households for estimating the efficiency of policy instruments on sustainable land use in Haiti

Degradation of natural resources in Haiti has been a growing concern to foresters, environmentalists, and local populations. Various approaches based on “participatory”, “fines and taxes” and “command and control” regulations, have been unsuccessfully implemented to persuade farm households to adopt conservation measures. Negative impacts on the welfare of farmers limit the efficiency of these approaches for forest conservation. This paper investigates alternative solutions to the problem of deforestation of Haiti using linear programming (LP) models. More specifically, this study evaluates the role of various policy instruments on large-income farm households and low-income farm households’ welfare and forest conservation in Haiti. Data from 243 farmers inside the Forêt of the Forêt des Pins Reserve are used in the empirical analysis. Results suggest that agricultural subsidies tied to environmental conservation would promote a more sustainable resource use in Forêt des Pins Reserve.     

The evolution and resilience of community-based land tenure in rural Mexico

This paper examines the evolution of ejido tenure in Mexico since the 1992 constitutional and legal reforms in that country. Prior to the Mexican Revolution, communal tenure had all but disappeared, but since 1920 community-based tenure re-emerged to become the dominant tenure form in Mexico. The paper investigates ejido land tenure through an examination of ejido governance structures and the tenure rules relating to the acquisition, transfer and extinction of land and resource rights. It draws on community-level research and numerous published case studies, relevant laws, and on data describing the status of ejidos countrywide. This reveals a diverse set of practices, which in many instances depart from the rules as defined in the Agrarian Law and even in internal community regulations. Land tenure plays a critical mediating role in the inter-relationship between humans and the environment. Using the framework of resilience I examine the persistence of ejido tenure and its dynamics in the aftermath of major land policy and legal reforms. Three major ‘shocks’ are identified which are seriously challenging the resilience of ejidos. These are the 1992 legal reforms, NAFTA and the resulting out-migration from rural Mexico, and urbanization. I conclude that ejidos have generally been resilient enough to accommodate the 1992 reforms, but problems with cross-generational transfers that stem in part from labor migration, and urbanization have set ejidos on a course that could ultimately overcome all but the most resilient communities.     

Social capital,risk preference and adoption of improved farm land management practices in Ethiopia

Many developing countries grapple with high rates of farmland degradation and low agricultural productivity amidst increasing climate variability. Considerable efforts have been exerted to promote the diffusion of improved farmland management to address these challenges. Despite these efforts, adoption rates, especially of soil conservation and water harvesting technologies, are still low, which has been the subject of investigation in several studies in Ethiopia and elsewhere. Most studies on the adoption of these technologies, however, tend to focus on economic incentives only, paying little attention to the role of social capital. This article provides evidence of the effects of different dimensions of social capital on innovation adoption across households holding different levels of risk aversion. We address this issue by using cross section and panel data from Ethiopia. Results show that social capital plays a significant role in enhancing the adoption of improved farmland management practices. We also find evidence that the effect of social capital across households with heterogeneous risk taking behavior is different.     

Revisiting the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa: The promise and perils of customary practices

This paper revisits the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa by focusing on two central issues: (1) land law reform as a tool for resolving land conflicts, and (2) the role of land law reform in addressing gender inequalities. While the Bank's recent land report provides insights for improving land governance in Africa, it fails to acknowledge the exploitative and contentious politics that often characterize customary land tenure systems, and the local power dynamics that undermine the ability of marginalized groups to secure land rights. Using insights from recent fieldwork, the paper analyses the links between land law reform and conflict in Ghana, and the gendered dynamics of reforming land governance in Tanzania. These “crucial cases” illustrate how land law reform can provoke conflicts over land and threaten the rights of vulnerable populations (e.g. migrants and women) when customary practices are uncritically endorsed as a means of improving land governance. As such, the paper concludes with a series of recommendations on how to navigate the promise and perils of customary practices in the governance of land.