Inappropriate Land Tenure Systems

Security of land tenure is very closely linked with farmers' willingness to invest in agriculture, including investment in crop-livestock integration such as fertility build-up through application of manure and animal housing. Security of tenure in this context can be defined as rights to land that are:

- durable or sufficiently long-term to give an incentive to invest
- effective and not liable to be arbitrarily overridden
- robust, giving freedom to use or dispose of land, free from interference of community or family.

In practice the third of these criteria often can be used as a proxy for the other two.

Insecurity of tenure is not a necessary feature of customary land tenure systems. Even if it is accepted that these systems are generally found in areas of low population density and therefore low demand for land, there is some evidence that as densities increase, the system will spontaneously move towards stronger and more alienable rights.

Insecurity of tenure is more likely to be associated with:

- systems where customary institutions for regulating access to land have decayed, through government action or rapid commercialisation
- special groups, such as widows, in some codified customary systems (especially where social support mechanisms outside the land tenure system have decayed)
- poorly managed land titling processes, where elites and outsiders are able to reap the benefits at the expense of smallholders having customary tenure.

Another land-related problem will be zoning regulations that attempt to separate arable and grazing land in systems that are in fact moving towards crop-livestock integration.

Policy Options

Improved land tenure for mixed farmers

Key references

Bruce, J.W. and Migot-Adholla, S.E. (eds) 1994. Searching for Land Tenure Security in Africa. Dubuque, Iowa, Kendall Hunt.

> > [Livestock & Environment Toolbox Home]