By Julius Bright Ross and Amanda Clark
In a sunny field in El Salvador’s Usulután Department this August, approximately twenty members of a Farmer Field School gathered around a plot containing six different varieties of maize. As they discussed the comparative advantages of the varieties, they keenly appraised their likelihood of withstanding both dry spells and heavy precipitation events. Heavy precipitation, in particular, was top-of-mind after intense storms fell on much of El Salvador this June, flattening young crops and stripping fields of topsoil and organic matter. Another tool for improving resilience wound its way through the maize plants: jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis), planted alongside maize as beans have been for millennia to enrich the soil and provide ground cover. Using funding from the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is promoting Canavalia ground cover as part of a suite of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices, which aim to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes, adapt and build resilience to climate change, and (where possible), reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions. CRS’ suite of CSA approaches in El Salvador, which they term “water-smart agriculture”, focuses primarily on increasing and stabilizing yields sustainably to improve food security during intermittent droughts. One farmer, Adonis, has enthusiastically adopted Canavalia and other CSA techniques, emphasizing to the BHA team that the ground cover keeps his soil moist during brief dry spells.
Nevertheless, greater adoption of Canavalia and, in particular, more laborious soil and water conservation measures such as in-field infiltration trenches by Salvadoran farmers is heavily curtailed by the trade-off between near-term results and how long a farmer can count on farming the same plot of land — that is, how secure their land tenure is. In El Salvador, a high percentage of farmers do not own their land, often paying a landowner for the usage rights in-kind through crop residues to feed cattle with during the dry season. When unofficially surveyed, only about half of the CRS farmer field school members reported owning the land they farmed, and only half of those that rented (including Adonis) were confident they would be able to farm the same land the next year.
Land tenure refers to the relationship individuals and groups have with land and its resources, including trees, minerals, pastures, and water. These relationships are defined by land tenure systems – the rules, customs, and laws that define how property rights to land are allocated, transferred, used, or managed. More broadly, the field of land and resource governance (LRG) describes the complex relationships between land and societal elements such as culture, politics, economics, and history. The unique LRG context that describes a community’s land tenure varies both geographically and over time, but is of crucial importance to understanding challenges to economic development.
Insecure land tenure is linked in complex ways to food insecurity. The possession of secure tenure over land can itself be a marker of wealth and permanency, which can affect food security in myriad ways including the ability to invest in inputs, the time to acquire knowledge of the land’s idiosyncrasies for growing crops, and social capital with long-term neighbors that might provide coping mechanisms during shortages. In some cases, land tenure security may provide greater access to credit, directly driving the agricultural investments (including both assets and financial mechanisms such as insurance) that cushion the effects of climatological drivers of crop failure such as drought. These factors encourage smallholders with secure land rights to make longer-term decisions for themselves, their families, and their lands.
USAID is a leader in developing evidence at the juncture of land tenure security and CSA adoption. A follow-on impact evaluation of the USAID-funded Tenure and Global Climate Change Project in Zambia found strong links between land tenure security and increased uptake of Climate-smart Agriculture practices, although it is worth noting that the strength of these links varies geographically. Many CSA practices have long-term payouts that require significant upfront investments. For farmers with insecure access to land, these costs can be a significant barrier to adopting such practices. Farmers will likely avoid the high investment incurred by practices that improve long-term sustainability if they cannot count on benefitting from them in the short-term. Conversely, LRG improvements such as strengthening land tenure and investing in governance of communal resources can provide the scaffolding farmers need to embrace CSA approaches, which, despite their initial costs, can improve soil health, increase biodiversity, and build resilience against climate change, thereby increasing the stability of productivity over time.
USAID works to improve land and resource governance and strengthen property rights in 23 countries globally. In each of these countries, the agency ensures that programming is context-specific and responds directly to the needs of those most vulnerable to land exploitation. In Ethiopia, issues such as farmer-herder conflict and unequal land access for women and youth hinder equitable adaptation to climate challenges. The Ethiopia Land Governance Activity aims to address these issues by strengthening land governance systems, expanding communal land tenure security in pastoral areas by facilitating policy reforms, and creating opportunities for more women to serve in land administration entities. In Colombia, unclear land tenure and property rights obstruct economic growth, generate violence and social tension, and fuel illicit activities that lead to increased deforestation and land-based carbon emissions. By providing access to land titles, supporting land restitution, strengthening local government capacity for land administration, and integrating citizens into licit socioeconomic opportunities, the Land for Prosperity Activity aims to protect members of rural communities from climate and socioeconomic risks.
In El Salvador, Canavalia ground cover is a tenure-conscious component of CRS’ Climate-smart Agriculture: short-term enough to produce results within a growing season, but with long-term value for those with surer land tenure. Nevertheless, Canavalia works best in concert with other CSA practices, including mulching crop residues that often go towards paying rent and establishing trenches or live barriers to reduce loss of soil and organic matter on steep farmed slopes. CRS is exploring alternative arrangements to make these investments possible for tenant farmers, such as through promoting herbaceous live barriers paired with silage training to provide an alternative value proposition for landowners.
Whether through increasing land tenure security or finding creative solutions to increase the feasibility of soil and water conservation on rented land, long-term stewardship can make a substantial difference. The BHA team visited Santos Franco Reyes’ farm in the department of Morazán, which he has owned for twenty years and which he has steadily improved over that time. Despite a 12 to 13 percent slope, the field’s maize plants were growing strong in clearly healthy soil, with ample mulch from the well-pruned trees growing throughout the field and worm-castings every few inches. Santos proudly showed off the infiltration trenches that he had dug to capture heavy rainfall and infiltrate it into downslope maize over subsequent days, telling us he has been digging these for half a decade already. Santos has farmed this slope since his daughter Sulma, standing out with us, was a young girl. As Santos put it, “I do everything I can to make sure this farm is here for her when I move on.”
In this interview, Diomara Montañez, the mayor of Sardinata, talks about the community expectations, the transition to licit economies, and what a property title means to the people of Sardinata.
What does a property title mean to the residents of Sardinata?
The government is designing a transformation strategy for the region that includes Sardinata. What does that strategy include?
How has the USAID-supported municipal land office improved land administration and the sustainability of a formal land market in Sardinata?
Central to the oral history of the Santo Madero community is the legend of a miraculous tree that fell in a violent storm only to reappear a few days later, upright and green. The event, which reflects the magic realism that Colombia is known for, has evolved into a vital part of local folklore and is celebrated by the Afro-Colombian community every year.
“For black communities, the ancestral territory is an ancient issue that was not born in Colombia. The Colombian government has to guarantee land rights so that Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities can maintain their culture and carry out their traditions,” he explains.
Santo Madero is nestled in the Montes de María region of the Caribbean where thousands of people were caught in the conflict and subjected to extreme violence and massacres. For more than a decade, residents regularly faced threats and extortion, leading to the loss of income and jobs based on agriculture and prompting many to search for a new life in nearby cities. By 2010, many feared that the traditions of the Palenque diaspora would be lost forever.
In 2016, in the wake of the historic Peace Agreement, USAID began working with the 
USAID has designed and utilized protocols that include free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and the designation of an ethnic liaison delegated by the community.
In 2018, José Hernández, the founder of gourmet exporter SumaPaz Foods, discovered the secrets of Colombia’s sesame in the hills of Montes de María in the Caribbean region. In the municipality of Córdoba Tetón, SumaPaz began working with families involved in sesame for generations. In 2023, USAID’s Land for Prosperity Activity facilitated a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) that includes SumaPaz, government agencies, and over 600 families from the region.
In Colombia we have special water and biodiversity conditions, and we want to preserve this wealth. We also have communities with a lot of needs, and this natural wealth can improve their quality of life. We believe that the best way to protect our ecosystems is to produce food organically.
Colombia has different ecosystems and microclimates that give food different nuances and flavors. For example, our sesame is very well liked in Germany, where they want a sweeter and less astringent sesame for baked goods. It also works very well to make oil. The chapter of Colombian coffee has already been written, but right now we are writing the chapter on Colombian sesame.
We can grow. The European market is growing and we also want to look to the USA. According to our analysis, we have the capacity to export at least 2,000 metric tons per year right now. This year, we could export 350 tons, or 18% of our annual capacity. And if one day we manage to produce and export 2,000 tons, by then the demand would have probably grown even more.
For thousands of years, sesame seeds have been a key ingredient for a wide variety of Greek foods, from tahini to sesame bar snacks to Greece’s most popular street food, the indistinguishable, sesame-covered rings known as koulouri.
The story of sesame in this region of Colombia mirrors the ugly violence that engulfed it in the early 2000s, when the leftist group FARC expanded its control of the region and the rise of paramilitarism caught rural communities in the middle, leaving villages full of victims in its wake. Rebels and paramilitary groups moved through rural towns stealing the communities’ most important assets: livestock.
To help rebuild these communities, USAID facilitated a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) that includes SumaPaz, government agencies, and over 600 families from the region. The PPP was signed in 2023 and is valued at nearly USD $1.8 million. The PPP’s objective is to increase production and processing of artisanal sesame, promote organic certification, and establish sustainable market channels, especially in high value markets like Europe and USA.
With organic certification under their belt and technical support from SumaPaz, sesame farmers have already exported four containers of high-quality sesame to buyers in the European market. Each container equals approximately 18 tons of sesame for gourmet food buyers in Greece and Germany.
With USAID support, Colombia’s National Land Agency delivered 83 land titles to families who have voluntarily substituted illicit crops in the municipality of Cáceres, Antioquia. The property titles correspond to over 1,200 hectares of rural land in the heart of Bajo Cauca, a zone affected by years of violence and narcotrafficking.
Secure land tenure
As part of the Rural Property and Land Administration Plan (POSPR) being implemented in Chaparral, USAID Land for Prosperity (LFP) partnered with Colombia’s Land Restitution Unit to host a series of workshops to empower rural women about their property rights, land ownership, the care economy, and gender-based violence. These workshops, called nucleos de exigibilidad, were piloted first in Ataco during POSPR implementation. During the sessions, 30 female leaders who are participating in land restitution and formalization processes shared their views of their territory and learned about gender-based violence with a focus on patrimonial and economic violence. The women met three times to discuss crucial topics for their personal growth and the one of their communities, as an opportunity to strengthen their leadership and promote gender equality in Southern Tolima.
The strategy was originally implemented in the municipality of Ataco and was recently extended to Chaparral, with the aim of building the capacity of these women so they can multiply their knowledge with their communities and neighborhoods. The work between the URT and LFP coordinates two important public policies: the one for rural property and land administration, and the one for land restitution.
The participants showed an unbreakable commitment in this process, becoming agents of change in their communities. Edna Liliana Castro, resident of the Guanábano Brasilia village, has stood out not just as a farmer but also as an influential leader, playing a valuable role in the implementation of the POSPR as a community volunteer. Community volunteers are vital, as they encourage the communities to participate, and disseminate the POSPR methodology and objectives so that people understand the benefits of titling their land.
The last session of the workshops coincided with International Women’s Day, and during the event the women held a discussion with public officials from government entities such as the Agency for Rural Development, the Rural Development and the Community Development and Health Municipal Secretaries, and the Municipal Council. The women were grateful for the opportunity to advocate and take action in favor of their rights, both in rural and urban environments.