Post Type: Article

This article was originally published on the Next Billion website. 

By: Mary Hobbs, Director for the Agriculture, Environment, and Business Office, USAID/Mozambique

Mozambican farmer Lucia Maurício farms about 10 hectares (25 acres) of land to feed her five growing children.

Portucel Executive Director Paulo Silva manages more than 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) of eucalyptus farms in Mozambique to feed a growing multi-million-dollar global supply chain hungry for paper pulp.

They have more in common than you might think.

Both require the same foundation to achieve their goals: clear and documented land rights.

Just as clear and documented land rights allow farmers to invest in their land to improve their harvests and their lives, they allow investors and corporations to more easily identify farmers and communities with surplus land, and to negotiate to access or lease the land they need to keep their company running.

Land rights are an underappreciated precondition across the agriculture spectrum – from the largest agriculture companies to subsistence farmers, their foundation for success is documented and secure land tenure.

This may sound like a simple requirement, but in Mozambique and many other sub-Saharan African countries, that foundation had not yet been laid. According to the World Bank, only 10% of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa is documented. In Mozambique, where Lucia farms and Paulo works, the FAO says only about 20% of land is documented. Those figures haven’t changed much in decades – trapping farmers like Lucia in poverty and providing hurdles to investment for investors like Paulo.

Most farmers in Lucia’s village of Enhumua farmed without titles or deeds to the land they rely on. They farmed land passed down to them or bought on a handshake. The contours and boundaries of each parcel were rarely noted on paper.

And when land tenure is unclear or undocumented, both farmers and businesses suffer.

This was the case for Lucia. Previously she could not capitalize on the most fertile section of her land because of conflicting claims. The parcel was by the river, well irrigated, and blessed with rich, productive soil. But her neighbors also claimed the land. And this threat influenced the way she farmed. Instead of trying to maximize profits, she and her husband Calisto tried to minimize their risks. Despite the land’s potential, she planted only corn on the parcel. She feared that if she planted other vegetables, which are much more profitable, her neighbors would take the investment as an irresistible invitation and seize some or all of her crop along with her land.

This type of conflict over land has long been common, and it intensified in 2010, when the government granted approximately 173,000 hectares of land in Zambézia province (which includes Lucia’s village of Enhumua) to Portucel-Mozambique to establish large-scale eucalyptus farms. Zambézia is the second most populous province in Mozambique. So across Zambézia, villages like Enhumua do not have a lot of vacant and unused land.

Portucel staff immediately recognized the challenges of operating a business in such an uncertain environment when they began negotiating with villagers to lease land. In Namalapa village, not far from Enhumua, Joao Ernesto Prego received an unwanted surprise when Portucel claimed rights to 3.5 hectares of his land. Joao’s nephew had signed over rights in exchange for a promise of lifetime employment with Portucel.  Portucel had a signed document from the nephew, and Joao found he had little recourse.

As the company’s eucalyptus farms sprouted across the horizon, similar stories – born of a tangled web of unclear and undocumented land tenure – multiplied. Eventually, as with many companies, Portucel ceased all land procurement negotiations and put future investments on hold while they worked out how to responsibly negotiate with and invest in communities where land tenure is undocumented and unclear. Land disputes can very easily escalate, creating tensions in a community that make it unsafe for families and businesses alike.

The company’s hopes for the future, along with those of Lucia and other farmers, soared when USAID and DFID-funded programs to document smallholders’ land rights came to the region. The programs trained farmers like Lucia to document land boundaries with GPS technology.

Farmers walk the boundaries of their land, GPS in hand and witnesses in tow, to map their properties. Each farmer is provided with a certificate signed by local leaders that includes a satellite map of the farm, GPS coordinates, the farmers’ names, and the names of community leaders and witnesses.

The certificates provide smallholders like Lucia and Calisto with their first documentation of their land rights. This added security has been transformative for Lucia, her community and Portucel. When farmers like Lucia have secure rights to property, they can negotiate with businesses to loan or lease their land, or arrange an out-grower contract with a company like Portucel and enter the global marketplace.

With clearly documented land boundaries, Portucel can finally identify landowners with surplus land and negotiate to access or lease it. They can also identify vacant parcels and pursue options for leasing that land from the government or communities.

Portucel hopes these changes will enable it to reduce its investment risk and increase the sustainability of its business. As Paulo Silva says, “Now, in a vast area of our holdings, we all know the right locations of the plots of people living there, creating better conditions for dialogue between the company, communities and individuals. This allows us to better plan for the future.”

Lucia certainly wasted no time in taking advantage of her newfound confidence in her land rights. She is planting a vegetable garden on her prized parcel and, with the proceeds from that harvest, will gain a measure of self-reliance heretofore unimaginable. She and her husband expect the vegetable plot will quadruple their income. Such a jump in their earnings would finally allow them to put a much-needed zinc roof on their home, support their children’s education, and improve the productivity of their other fields with investments like fertilizer or better-quality seeds.

“We can farm as we please,” says Lucia with a smile. “Life is good now.”

Martins Gabriel Paiva, a village chief often called upon to settle land disputes, has also noted the change brought by better documentation of land rights. “In the past there was constant conflict over land,” he says. “Now there is harmony.”

Martins notes that Lucia’s story is being replicated across the district. “The land thieves now know that every parcel has an owner,” he says. “We are now kinder to each other. We have a community group that has the people’s trust and it is working on building a community fishpond.”

“Now,” he adds, “we can improve our development.”

Mary Hobbs is the Director for the Agriculture, Environment, and Business Office at USAID/Mozambique.

Photos courtesy of Mary Hobbs – USAID. 

T. S. Jayne,  Milu Muyanga, Ayala Wineman, Hosaena Ghebru, Caleb Stevens, Mercedes Stickler, Antony Chapoto, Ward Anseeuw, Divan van der Westhuizen, David Nyang

Abstract

This study presents evidence of profound farm-level transformation in parts of sub- Saharan Africa, identifies major sources of dynamism in the sector, and proposes an updated typology of farms that reflects the evolving nature of African agriculture. Repeat waves of national survey data are used to examine changes in crop production and marketed output by farm size. Between the first and most recent surveys (generally covering 6 to 10 years), the share of national marketed crop output value accounted for by medium-scale farms rose in Zambia from 23% to 42%, in Tanzania from 17% to 36%, and in Nigeria from 7% to 18%. The share of land under medium-scale farms is not rising in densely populated countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, where land scarcity is impeding the pace of medium-scale farm acquisitions. Medium-scale farmers are a diverse group, reflecting distinct entry pathways into agriculture, encouraged by the rapid development of land rental, purchase, and long-term lease markets. The rise of medium-scale farms is affecting the region in diverse ways that are difficult to generalize. Findings indicate that these farms can be a dynamic driver of agricultural transformation but this does not reduce the importance of maintaining a clear commitment to supporting smallholder farms. Strengthening land tenure security of local rural people to maintain land rights and support productivity investments by smallholder households remains crucial.

Introduction

Ever since the critical acclaim given to the Asian green revolution starting in the 1980s, it has been widely accepted that a smallholder-led growth strategy would also be the pathway for achieving economic transformation and mass poverty reduction in Africa. Over 90% of farms in South and East Asia were smaller than two hectares at the beginning of the Green Revolution (Hayami & Ruttan, 1971; Johnston & Kilby, 1975). Because small-scale farms also constitute the vast majority of farms in Africa, agricultural economists have generally accepted that a smallholder-led strategy also holds the best prospects for agricultural development in Africa (e.g., Hazell, Poulton, Wiggins, & Dorward, 2010; Mellor, 1995).

However, parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are witnessing rapid changes in farm size distributions. “Medium-scale” farm landholdings of five to 100 ha now account for a substantial and growing share of farmland in many African countries (Jayne et al., 2016).1 Perhaps ironically, the amount of land acquired by this category of African farmer since 2000 far exceeds the amount of land acquired by foreign investors (Jayne et al., 2014a). This might be considered a surprising development, but in retrospect, perhaps it should not have been. The dramatic rise in global food prices after 2007 initiated major foreign investment in African farmland. Why should not African investors have done the same?

Parallel to these developments, the region is witnessing changes in land tenure institutions that influence who is acquiring land (Boone, 2014; Knapman, Silici, Cotula, & Mayers, 2017). Parts of the region are experiencing a notable shift in the allocation of customary land, moving from a rights-based approach that secures access to land for localborn members of the community to market-based approaches in which land becomes a commodity for rent or sale. Although SSA’s rural areas contain 20.3 million km2 of land, only 25% of the region is arable (CIA 2019). With an estimated rural population of 620 million people in 2017, the region is sparsely populated at 31 persons per km2. However, roughly 72% of SSA’s rural population resides on only 10% of its rural areas (Jayne, Chamberlin, & Headey, 2014b). For this majority of the region’s rural population, the average population density is 223.2 persons per km2. Hence, even though most of SSA might be considered “land abundant” and sparsely populated, a relatively large proportion of rural Africans face land scarcity, rapidly rising land prices, and perceptions of tenure insecurity (Knapman et al., 2017; Lawry et al., 2014; Wineman & Jayne, 2018). As population densities rise and land becomes scarcer in many areas, tenure security is becoming increasingly important, as research evidence shows that security of tenure generally promotes long-term land investments and agricultural productivity (Atwood, 1990; Goldstein, Houngbedji, Kondylis, O’Sullivan, & Selod, 2015; Holden, Deininger, & Ghebru, 2009; Place, 2009).

African policy makers and development organizations are increasingly interested in whether these new trends in farm size distributions are beneficial for small-scale farm households, who still constitute the vast majority of rural households in Africa, and whether they are promoting or retarding equitable forms of economic transformation in Africa. This study reviews the evidence on these policy issues.

To address these questions, we focus on the causes and consequences of the rise of medium-scale farms in Africa. This literature remains highly limited by the fact that accurate data on farms over 20 ha is not available in the majority of African countries. We therefore collected new primary data on medium-scale farms that are considered statistically representative of farms operating between 5 and 100 ha for particular districts or comparable administrative units in Malawi, Nigeria, and Senegal. While most of the studies attempting to analyze farm structure in Africa utilize Living Standards Monitoring Surveys (LSMS) or similar nationwide farm data sets, it is increasingly acknowledged that almost all of these datasets provide highly imprecise and most likely under-reported estimates of the numbers of farms operating over 10 ha of land. Evidence of this is provided in Section 2. However, even when utilizing these datasets, as we do for Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia in Section 3, it is shown that medium-scale farms are accounting for a rising proportion of national farmland and the value of crop production and marketed output. However, in other countries, especially those that are relatively densely populated, the data suggest that the number of medium-scale farms has grown relatively slowly or not at all, but we cannot tell with confidence whether this is a valid conclusion or an artifact of sampling designs that almost certainly under-report relatively large farms.

The causes and consequences of changing farm structure and the rise of medium-scale farms are discussed in Sections 4 and 5. Though the literature remains thin, emerging evidence indicates that medium-scale farms generate mostly positive spillover effects on smallholder farmers. In Section 6, we examine the characteristics of medium-scale farmers and the various pathways to becoming a medium-scale farmer. Section 7 examines how medium-scale farmers are acquiring their land and how these pathways differ from how small-scale farm household tend to acquire land. Section 8 reviews the evidence on changes in land tenure systems and security and how medium-scale farms may be indirectly influencing tenure systems. A summary of the main findings and policy implications of the study are presented in Section 9. In the process, we propose an updated typology of farms that reflects recent changes in the relative importance of different farm categories and sheds light on the heterogeneity found even among smallholder farms. Section 9 also addresses how land tenure security by members of local communities and vulnerable groups in particular may be enhanced even while evolving land institutions are encouraging market-based land transfers and the “commodification” of land in rural Africa.

Tell us about yourself.

I am a Land Tenure and Resource Governance Advisor in the Land and Urban Office in USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment (E3). Within the Land and Urban Office, I advise and manage activities that touch upon natural resource governance issues associated with a range of topics, including coastal, forest, and marine tenure, community-resource mapping and customary rights. I also serve as the Land and Urban Office’s point of contact on land governance in Asia as well as urban and water tenure issues globally.

Why is land governance important to USAID?

The consideration of land and resource governance is essential to addressing development issues globally. Understanding the complex relations between people, communities, institutions and the resources they rely on is central to responsible and transformative development. In the absence of strong resource governance systems and secure property rights, development efforts too often fail to produce lasting benefits that advance partner countries’ journeys to self-reliance.

How is land and resource tenure connected to forest and marine issues?

In the development context, the focus of tenure work has largely been associated with agriculture and rural development. Now, we are increasingly seeing the importance of applying a tenure lens to issues associated with a range of resources beyond land, including forests and marine and coastal resources. For example, in some countries, recognizing a farmer’s right to land does not necessarily confer rights over the trees growing on it (tree tenure), including trees associated with important tree crops. When the principles of tenure are taken offshore and applied to coastal and marine resources, they fit very nicely within ongoing discussions on how to improve coastal and marine-based livelihoods and the ecosystems they depend on. Specifically, using a tenure-responsive approach within coastal communities offers a framework to understand the complex layers of use rights that overlap each other in the coastal interface.

How is USAID working to transform communities through coastal resource management and mangrove forest restoration approaches that address tenure? What are some of the challenges?

Due to the dearth of information on coastal and marine tenure, USAID has worked with partners to develop a better understanding of resource governance constraints to improving coastal and marine-based livelihoods. Coastal communities are some of the most economically depressed and vulnerable in the world. Their incomes are almost entirely reliant on near- and offshore resources. With increased populations and coastlines facing greater pressures and threats, there is an increased need to understand the social and biophysical dynamics of these coastal systems. To date, the majority of research on coastal forest management focused on biophysical variables, with little consideration of the role of tenure. In partnership with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), USAID conducted a global assessment of mangrove governance, with specific deep dives in Indonesia and Tanzania. The findings from the effort provided important guidance on specific tenure-related trends and considerations to inform future programming. For example, the findings highlighted the crucial role women play in coastal resource management and their lack of access to important economic development incentive programming. The work also highlighted the important role participatory planning processes serve in informing decentralized co-governance and natural resource management arrangements.

What are some of your biggest accomplishments in the land sector?

I consider the recently completed Tenure and Global Climate Change program to represent a significant achievement. I was lucky enough to be able to actively design, manage and guide many of the sub-tasks within Zambia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Through this experience we improved global and Agency understanding of a wide range of issues: customary and community tenure over land and resources; the role of tenure in REDD+ programming, fisheries and coastal forest management; gender, resource rights and global climate change; and linkages between strengthened resource rights and deforestation-free commodity supply chains. Additionally, the program’s contribution to the passing and recognition of the National Land Use Policy in Myanmar was a particularly exciting milestone for our work.

Final thoughts?

Over the past 30 years, USAID has served as a leader in elevating the importance of land and resource governance as a foundational consideration for successful development. And, although there are many challenges related to land, we continue to learn more every day about the necessary enabling conditions for appropriate and successful land and resource governance activities. I am truly grateful to be a part of this work and contributing to this legacy.

USAID’s E3/Land and Urban Office, Namati and the International Development Research Centre jointly funded a rigorous midline evaluation of the Community Land Protection Program (CLPP) in rural Liberia. While previous research has focused on the effects of individual land titling programs, there is little quantitative evidence of the effects of supporting communities to protect and govern their own community land. This evaluation fills this knowledge gap by investigating the effects of CLPP on improving resource governance, tenure security, community empowerment and livelihoods.

Developed by Namati and funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, CLPP is a global program that seeks to empower communities to successfully protect their community land rights. In Liberia, the CLPP was implemented from 2016-2017. The midline evaluation used a set of matched comparison communities together with baseline and midline data for 818 households in 57 communities spread across three counties.

Last year, USAID and our partners set out to answer a critical question that is essential to informing how we work with businesses, communities and governments on land rights and economic growth: how does the private sector think about and deal with risks to their investments stemming from unclear or weak land tenure and property rights?

To date, there had been no systematic study of how investors and business operators actually assess and seek to mitigate land tenure risks. Without a clear understanding of these issues, USAID and other development agencies are limited in our efforts to develop policies, programs and partnerships that create win-win scenarios for both businesses and local communities.

Read the full piece on the Global Landscapes Forum website.

Over ten months, the USAID-funded Massive Land Formalization Pilot teams work six days a week, 6am-3pm, walking off every single property, parcel, & farm in an area measuring 500sq. kilometers. At 200m above sea level, 100 kilometers from the Caribbean ocean, the terrain is hot, humid, buggy, muddy, rainy, boggy, and dotted with unfriendly plants that sting, stick, and poke, plenty of mosquitoes, spiders, scorpions, an odd snake or two. Mid day sun, brutal. Rainy season, relentless.

The teams–many of whom grew up in these parts–deal not only with extreme climate conditions, but unpredictable landowners, who never show up. Technology that doesn’t always respond. Dead batteries at the end of the day.

Land conflicts: neighbors, families, property boundaries, divisions, forgotten inheritances, and the never-ending saga of a government that has completely abandoned land administration for at least the last 20 years.

This is the face of land formalization in 2018 Colombia!

Jennifer Chow is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Global Engagement and Strategy Office in USAID’s Bureau for Food Security. We spoke to her about why land is important to improving food security and advancing development.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I provide policy and strategic guidance on global food security issues with US Government leadership, other donors, international organizations and other development partners. I also provide input to help shape international norm-setting principles and voluntary guidelines. I try to make sure this policy guidance reflects the work of USAID on the ground and the development priorities of our government, and in turn that our work reflects global priorities and best practices, and that we at USAID focus on emerging issues so that our resources and efforts are effective and well-coordinated.

A lot of this work includes finding common ground and identifying opportunities to work better with other development partners (as well as within our own government) and building trust and long-term working relationships. I also focus on addressing issues such as resource governance, land tenure & property rights and responsible investment as part of a holistic global food security agenda.

Why is land important to USAID?

In general, I think land represents at least two critical things to everyone: 1) it is an economic asset which can be transacted (bought, sold, rented, mortgaged, etc) and 2) it is a livelihood asset which can provide shelter, a home, food, storage, safety & protection and other benefits.

Investments in land are often part of the essential economic stability and food security picture for families, communities and countries, which makes land an important part of our larger development vision. The support we provide in the countries where we work and the partnerships we shape can be critically altered by policies or dynamics around land.

What is the connection between land tenure and food security?

One simple example is that tenure security can lead to investments to improve the land as well as increase food productivity. For farmers in particular, it’s important to have a stake in the land and a sense of security that you will actually be able to reap what you sow. It’s important to understand that nurturing the soil will yield benefits next season, that you can treat the land as an investment for future generations. All of these factors fundamentally motivate farmers (and others) to build sustainable irrigation and crop rotation systems, or use other climate-smart and holistic agriculture practices involving precision farming, different energy use, tillage and fertilizer practices. Land, and the soil and other conditions related to it, are critical for growing food, for contributing to reliable sources of nutrition and income and for developing or contributing to trade and markets.

How is USAID working to fight hunger, strengthen land rights, and/or support responsible investments?

USAID provides technical expertise and capacity building to help governments structure, enact and implement policies and procedures related to land and resource rights. We encourage inclusivity, help connect people to processes and facilitate discussions. We also create and provide guidelines and checklists for companies, communities and governments to approach land rights and responsible investment issues in a comprehensive manner. We incentivize this behavior through partnerships with companies, non-governmental organizations and government partners; through programs on the ground; through monitoring and evaluation; and through continuously pushing for transparency and consistency.

Through extensive consultation and learning from past experience, including from the first five years of the Feed the Future initiative, USAID developed a new Global Food Security Strategy for 2017-2021. It represents a whole-of-government approach with agency-specific implementation plans. It has Congressional support (and mandates) via the Global Food Security Act of 2016. It goes into detail about how we will contribute to the achievement of global food security and the Sustainable Development Goals while elevating nutrition and resilience and emphasizing market-led development.

USAID also coordinates with other development partners on land mapping activities and on using surveying tools and data to inform better policies and programs. We also partner with companies and NGOs to pilot the implementation of responsible investment guidelines, to document concerns and needs from various stakeholders and to develop win-win scenarios for investors and communities.