The Impact of Land Governance on Agroforestry Lessons Learned from a Randomized Control Trial in Zambia

Economic theory has long held that when farmers and other landholders have secure rights to their land and trees, they are more likely to invest in long-term sustainable practices, like agroforestry (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012). Agroforestry practices, in turn, help restore soil fertility, control erosion, improve agricultural productivity, and potentially improve farmers’ livelihoods, while sequestering carbon and strengthening farmers’ resilience to climate-related stresses (Castle et. al. 2021; Branca et. al. 2021). While the hypothesized links between land rights strengthening and agroforestry adoption seem clear, in practice, the evidence for these linkages has been mixed, and varies across contexts.

Finding ways to encourage more farmers to adopt agroforestry has been a decades-long challenge. More than 30 years of research on determinants of agroforestry adoption that span a wide range of developing countries has highlighted several important factors that relate to greater adoption in particular contexts. Strengthening farmers’ security over their land (land tenure security) is among the most commonly hypothesized strategies (interventions) for which several studies have offered glimmers of hope, but evidence on its effectiveness has remained low overall (Meijer et. al. 2015; Castle et. al. 2021). This is partly because few studies have rigorously examined the extent to which strengthening farmers’ land rights leads to greater agroforestry adoption. As a result, policy and program decision-makers continue to look for strategies that can effectively strengthen farmers’ land rights and associated benefits, while also leading to widespread and sustained agroforestry adoption on farms.

To help inform this knowledge gap, USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) activity in Zambia was designed to test whether improving farmers’ land tenure security and governance also incentivizes them to adopt agroforestry as a means to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change (in addition to increasing women’s empowerment and a host of other important development outcomes). To do so, the activity paired a series of land tenure activities, including issuing customary land certificates to customary land owners and establishing village land committees, with agroforestry extension services. A randomized control trial (RCT) impact evaluation assessed the impacts of the TGCC program individually and across its different intervention components: land tenure, agroforestry, and combined (land tenure + agroforestry) programming.

This policy brief summarizes the impact evaluation’s findings and further unpacks key aspects of agroforestry results across the two main agroforestry species that TGCC promoted: Faidherbia albidi (Musangu) and Gliricidia sepium (Gliricidia). This brief provides evidence-based insights for Zambian and other policy makers on important linkages between land tenure strengthening and promoting agroforestry, from a context of rural customary land and smallholder agriculture characterized by low soil fertility and crop productivity and high levels of poverty and climate variability. The brief also highlights clear and practical implications for future programming to achieve integrated land tenure, livelihoods, and climate objectives via agroforestry or other natural climate solutions in similar programming contexts.

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