The international development community mourns the loss of Chief Nyamphande IV, a traditional chief of the Nsenga Tribe of Zambia, who passed away suddenly on January 17, 2020. Chief Nyamphande was a celebrated land champion known for promoting women’s land rights and access to land for all people across Zambia. An important USAID partner, Chief Nyamphande contributed to numerous national development efforts over the course of his career, and his leadership offered a model of good governance for customary land.
First meeting of USAID land tenure programs with Chief Nyamphande in one of his fields in December 2014. Photo: James Murombedzi
“Chief Nyamphande was the first traditional leader USAID encountered when designing its support to customary land rights. He always acted as an ambassador for good governance with a focus on ‘how does any partnership improve the livelihoods of the people within his chiefdom,”USAID ILRG Chief of Party Matt Sommerville remarked on the chief’s legacy. He continued, “Chief Nyamphande provided a vision for using participatorily developed maps to secure the rights of his people, particularly women, as well as to negotiate positive outcomes with government in areas of water and sanitation, wildlife management and agricultural productivity. His passing is a deep loss for Zambia, though it is heartening to see many following in his footsteps.
Once an accountant, Chief Nyamphande was called to leave city life behind and return to serve his people of the Nsenga Tribe in Zambia’s Petauke District. Over the course of his years as chief, Nyamphande was devastated by the extent of land-related issues plaguing his community. Each week he witnessed widows being chased from their farms by extended family, neighbors fighting over boundaries and resources, and widespread deforestation of his people’s once densely forested land. Chief Nyamphande lamented these challenges in a 2019 interview:
“Women were the most disadvantaged,” Nyamphande said. “Brothers displaced widows and women were like an appendage to their husbands. They didn’t have rights. Brother fought with brother, and neighbor with neighbor. We had hundreds of disputes every year. If it wasn’t about ownership, it was about boundaries. There were assaults and even killings. Our community’s forests were a free-for-all. We didn’t know who was coming in and cutting our trees by the truckload.
Through his involvement with the USAID Tenure and Global Climate Change Program in 2014, he helped dramatically reduce the number of people affected by these issues, and supported his people to better-manage their land for a more sustainable future.
“Land is scarce,” Nyamphande said in 2019. “We’ve realized that we need to manage land better. This [USAID] program allows us to do that. We are setting aside a conservation area where no one will farm. We are protecting the natural environment by making rules about who can cut trees, who cannot cut. And, most importantly, when you cut a tree, you must plant a tree.
In 2018 Nyamphande continued his work by partnering with the USAID Integrated Land and Resource Governance Program (ILRG), supporting his and other communities to document their land tenure under the authority of village headpersons and chiefs. Through this work, male and female farmers in his community were provided physical, laminated, signed documentation of their land rights; a level of land security most farmers had never experienced. Before ILRG, few of Chief Nyamphande’s people had any documentation of their land at all.
“Anyone could make any claim,” Chief Nyamphande said in 2019. “It was an open field. People would come out of nowhere and say: ‘my grandfather loaned this land to your grandfather and now I am taking the land back’. We didn’t know if it was true or untrue. There was no documentation of anything.
In past rainy seasons, which last from October through March, mediation and conflict resolution between farmers and neighbors consumed Chief Nyamphande’s life. As the farmers were working their fields, Chief Nyamphande was working to keep the peace, resolve disputes, and help his community manage resources. Land documentation drastically reduced the need for mediation and the amount of time Chief Nyamphande spent settling disputes. Before his death Nyamphande heard community disputes on Mondays and Fridays, often referring both parties back to their land certificates to settle the conflict.
“Land tenure was our missing link,” the Chief said. “We had disputes and serious violence. But now, with GPS technology we have precisely measured our land. And we suddenly have order.
USAID and the government of Zambia look forward to continuing Nyamphande’s strong legacy of charting a prosperous and sustainable future for his people. Working closely with the new Acting Chief, the program will continue pushing land rights forward with the people of Zambia.
In 2019 LandLinks had its most successful year yet, including more than 219,000 page views across the site. Check out the top five most popular blogs, pages, and resources below.
One of the top pages in 2019 was this case study series highlighting USAID’s private sector engagement with The Hershey Company/ECOM Agroindustrial Trading in Ghana, Illovo Sugar Africa Ltd. in Mozambique, and the Moringa Partnership in Kenya. The case studies demonstrate that respecting and bolstering local land rights can be good for businesses and local communities. Click to learn more about the innovative partnerships and their impact.
A blog that drew the attention of many LandLinks visitors was “Increasing Land Rights through Property Ownership in Kosovo.” In Kosovo, the cultural traditions of informality and patriarchy have created multiple challenges for women’s property rights. USAID provided mentoring for judges and training for legal associates to take over more tasks related to processing cases. As a result, the time for the initial preparation of a case before the first court hearing decreased by 72 percent, from 1,058 to 297 days. Read another related blog, “Increasing women’s property ownership,” to learn about the impact of the USAID Property Rights Program.
USAID’s Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) Learning Platform was the third most popular page in 2019. The learning platform brings together tools, resources, and data from across MAST programs in a growing list of countries, including Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Liberia, and Zambia. MAST is a collaborative, participatory approach that builds sustainable local capacity to efficiently map resource rights and secure land tenure. The approach is inclusive and promotes participation and leadership of women and other marginalized groups in project activities. Check out Asiah Samila’s story from Tanzania about how documented property rights gave her financial stability. Click to learn more about the MAST approach, its field implementation, and technology.
One of the most popular resources on LandLinks was the Country Profiles page. Here you can find in-depth information on land, resource governance, and property rights issues for 69 countries around the world. Check out our most recent additions to the country profile library: India and Madagascar. Click to explore your country of interest.
One of the most popular blogs of 2019 was about USAID Administrator Green’s trip to Colombia where he and Colombia President Iván Duque signed a joint statement of support for the Massive Land Formalization Pilot, which is nearing completion in the municipality of Ovejas, Sucre. Watch the video to learn more about USAID’s work supporting land rights in Colombia.
The Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) Asia Enhancing Development and Growth through Energy (EDGE) Ag-Energy Prize seeks business owners and entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia with game-changing innovations operating at the nexus of renewable energy, and agriculture.
The winners of the Prize will receive $100,000 for the mid-stage category and $75,000 for the youth category in funding in addition to opportunities to engage with investors, mentors, and acceleration services.
The WE4F Asia EDGE Ag-Energy Prize is a partnership among the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The Prize includes a $355,000 cash prize purse for winners and runners-up, travel sponsorship to participate in the Clean Asia Energy Forum in Manila, the Philippines in June 2020, and customized acceleration services from the WE4F Asia Regional Hub.
In addition, 10 mid-stage and 5 youth innovator prize finalists will benefit from recognition on the WE4F website, communications materials, and travel support to participate in a co-creation workshop in Bangkok, Thailand in March 2020 to discuss challenges and opportunities in the renewable energy and agriculture nexus in Southeast Asia.
On December 5, 2019, the Senate Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues held a hearing on Illicit Mining: Threats to U.S. National Security and International Human Rights. USAID’s Jeff Haeni, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment (E3), testified on USAID’s efforts to address illicit mining. The full transcript of his written testimony and a video recording of the hearing are presented below.
Chairman Rubio, Ranking Member Cardin, Distinguished Members of this Sub-Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify about the important role the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) plays in addressing illegal and unregulated mining. It is an honor to be here with you today.
USAID is committed to working with governments, civil society, communities, and the private sector to reduce the impact of conflict; counteract the drivers of violence, instability, and transnational crime; address corruption; advance prosperity; protect human rights; improve human health; and prevent the loss of biodiversity. For all of these reasons, USAID is deeply concerned about illegal and unregulated mining. There is little doubt that illegal and unregulated mining, particularly artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), undermines U.S. interests around the globe, contributes to armed conflict and instability, provides funding to criminal networks, threatens our shared environment, and menaces indigenous people.
The linkages between mineral wealth and development are complex and dynamic. Despite the potential for a country’s mineral wealth to translate into prosperity and social development, we see far more examples in which discovery and exploitation of mineral wealth undermines development gains. Whether a country harnesses its mineral wealth for inclusive economic growth, or its mineral wealth leads to a downward spiral of corruption and violent conflict depends largely on a supportive policy framework and its enforcement, combined with citizen responsive governance, including transparency and accountability.
In many countries in which USAID works, governments, illegitimate regimes, and powerful nonstate actors, including companies, elites, and criminal groups, use intimidation, violence, and corruption to acquire wealth and control over the minerals sector. In these cases, economic benefits concentrate within a small percentage of the population, while many more people bear the negative environmental, social, and economic impacts.
Within the minerals sector, ASM is uniquely vulnerable to exploitation by corrupt officials, elites and criminal groups. At least 40 million people in developing countries – most of them poor – work in the ASM sector, most of which is informal in nature. Women and children are especially vulnerable to labor and sexual exploitation on illegal mining sites, particularly in conflict or post conflict environments. Powerful actors who face little or no accountability for predatory behavior easily undermine local regulatory structures.
Mining in violation of the laws of the nation in which the activity occurs often takes place in remote areas that are difficult to police. In Latin America, illegal and unregulated ASGM generates billions of dollars in illicit revenue for transnational criminal organizations, some of which have close ties to high-ranking officials in government and state security forces. In 2016, the total value of illicit gold production in South America was estimated as at least $7 billion, and by all accounts is increasing. In Venezuela, the former Maduro regime has increasingly turned towards illegal and unregulated gold mining to line its pockets and maintain its power, in cooperation with transnational groups.
In Africa, artisanal diamond, gold, coltan, and tungsten mining has helped finance prolonged and deadly conflicts in countries such as Angola, Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In CAR and DRC, minerals have become synonymous with “conflict,” which has resulted in temporary restrictions on their export. In the Sahel, armed groups are increasingly seizing control of ASGM sites in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger which could further destabilize the region. As in Latin America, high-ranking officials in government and state security forces often profit personally from these operations. Throughout much of Africa, illegal and unregulated ASM supply chains have links to criminal networks and contribute to domestic and regional insecurity.
ASM often occurs in and around protected areas of high biodiversity, which hampers efforts to protect critical ecosystems. Indigenous people and other vulnerable groups inhabit some of these areas. Artisanal and small‐scale gold mining (ASGM) is the largest source of mercury pollution on Earth as at least 10 million people use mercury to mine for gold in more than 70 countries – with severe effects on human health. Much of the mercury released goes into the atmosphere and travels thousands of miles. It is estimated that 70% of the mercury deposited in the United States comes from global sources. Alluvial gold mining – the extraction of gold from creeks, rivers and streams – has deforested over 62,500 hectares in the Amazon’s uniquely biodiverse Madre de Dios region since 1999.
Unfortunately, we have no easy or quick solutions. Illegal and unregulated ASM mining is a complex problem that requires long-term investments and structural reforms. USAID aims to support our partners that show the resolve to address the pervasive problems that surround this sector. Over the last five years, USAID has awarded programs with an anticipated total value of $125 million to address illegal and unregulated ASM in countries such as Afghanistan, CAR, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Perú, and Rwanda. Our programs include rigorous, field level monitoring, evaluation, and oversight which has generated the data needed to demonstrate impact and to ensure our programs constantly learn and adapt. On a recent trip to Colombia, USAID Administrator Mark Green commented that he was “shocked to see the remnants of the illegal mining and the devastating consequences for the environment,” but he was also heartened to witness first-hand the impact of USAID’s programs that have helped support environmentally and socially responsible licit supply-chains that “bring money revenues into legal channels in a way that helps to support families and provides new revenues for the government.”
Evidence suggests that formalization and legalization of the sector is one effective step to break the link between the trade of artisanal minerals and armed conflicts. USAID has learned through experience that addressing illegal and unregulated mining requires a coordinated, whole-of-government approach and long-term investments. We cannot solve this problem through development assistance alone. At USAID headquarters and in our Missions in the countries in which we work, our decision to engage in the artisanal mining sector occurs on the ground as part of a comprehensive and cross-sectoral Country Development and Cooperation Strategy. We make our investments in efforts to formalize and improve the ASM sector in partnership with national and local governments, civil society, and the private sector, almost always coupled with closely coordinated interventions from other U.S. Government Departments and Agencies.
In Latin America, USAID’s programs in Perú and Colombia directly support bilateral Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and the aforementioned governments to counter illegal mining and related crimes. In Perú, USAID has built up the country’s scientific and research capacity by establishing the first laboratory in Madre de Dios with the capacity to analyze environmental mercury contamination and supporting the publication of over 25 papers on remediation and management techniques. USAID recently launched a new five-year, $23.9 million program in Perú to strengthen environmental criminal justice institutions; reduce environmental crimes in key landscapes in and around protected areas and indigenous land; and support civil society and the media to serve as effective watchdogs. In Colombia, USAID funded programs promote legal and responsible mineral supply-chains in Antioquia and Chocó. Our programs have helped formalize 42 mining operations, eliminated nearly 40 tons of mercury from mining production, and assisted in generating $110 million dollars of legal gold sales, which mobilized $8 million of domestic resources in the form of royalties and taxes. In addition, USAID rehabilitated 17,000 hectares of land affected by mining.
In Africa, USAID works closely with other U.S. Government Departments and Agencies in CAR and the DRC. In CAR, USAID helps reduce the flow of conflict diamonds by improving compliance with the international due-diligence process known as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. In 2013, CAR was temporarily suspended from the Kimberley Process because of its lack of compliance and concerns about conflict diamonds, which led to an embargo on diamonds from CAR. USAID worked closely with the government of CAR to improve compliance, which led to a partial lift on the embargo in 2015. USAID continues to support the Government of CAR to improve compliance and strengthen social cohesion in mining communities. In the DRC, USAID supports the establishment of legal, responsible mineral supply-chains for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. In 2010, the United Nations reported that almost every mine site in Eastern DRC was under the control of armed groups. Since that time, USAID has supported the validation of more than 600 ASM sites as conflictfree. By 2017, an estimated three out of four tin, tantalum, and tungsten sites were free of the control of armed groups. In addition to the security improvements, the conflict-free supplychains have also generated a legal source of revenue. In 2018, validated conflict-free mine sites in the DRC legally exported approximately 15,800 tons of tin and tantalum worth over $285 million. This year, USAID supported the very first export of conflict-free gold to the United States from Eastern DRC through private-sector-led gold supply-chain involving only U.S. companies. Furthermore, USAID, along with the State Department and Department of Labor, established the Public-Private Alliance for Responsible Minerals Trade (PPA), a multistakeholder initiative that promotes responsible sourcing of gold, tin, tantalum, and tungsten in the DRC and the Great Lakes Region.
In Afghanistan, where extractives are the second-largest source of revenue for the Taliban after narcotics, USAID has developed interagency agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) within the Department of Interior with an anticipated total value of $38.2 million. This USAID funding supports the provision of targeted legal, regulatory, and policy advice as well as the analysis of geological data and management assistance to the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum and the Afghanistan Geological Survey.
But let me be clear, just because artisanal mining is legal and regulated, does not necessarily mean that it will propel a country towards self-reliance, nor can a comprehensive solution succeed without strengthening the governance of industrial mining. This is why USAID also funds the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), a voluntary, global partnership between governments, extractive-industry companies, and civil society to promote the transparent and accountable management of oil, gas, and mineral resources. Advancing the EITI Standard serves key U.S. national-security, economic, and foreign policy objectives, including fighting corruption, empowering communities affected by mining operations, leveling the playing field for U.S. companies overseas, and promoting good governance in the extractive sector worldwide. Since 2013, USAID has obligated more than $19 million in funding through over 17 USAID Missions – including in both Colombia and Perú – for programs to support the EITI-related disclosure of data on government revenue, explorations and concessions in the extractives sector; to strengthen multi-stakeholder governance; and to promote beneficial ownership processes to enhance transparency and minimize supply-chain risks to businesses, including money-laundering and terrorist-financing.
USAID’s successes in the sector have been hard-won. Mining in violation of the laws of the nation in which the activity occurs is a complex development problem that must be addressed through carefully planned and sustained investments, a permissive operational environment, and close collaboration with other U.S. government departments and agencies. USAID will continue to participate in U.S. Government interagency efforts to combat illegal and unregulated mining of a country’s natural resources; advance the formalization and regulation of the ASM sector; strengthen mineral ASM supply-chains to render them legal, transparent, and environmentally and socially responsible; combat related crimes such as sex and labor trafficking in mining regions; clarify land and resource rights; prevent encroachment into protected areas; promote the environmental rehabilitation of degraded lands and the elimination of mercury; protect the rights of indigenous peoples and other vulnerable populations; and support increased transparency and accountability in the minerals sector.
Our interest is, and always will be, to work with governments, civil society and the private sector in countries on their Journey to Self-Reliance. Part of this Journey is the effective management of natural resources, including high-value minerals. USAID will continue to join forces with partners that are committed to improving their regulation and management of the mining sector for the economic, social, and environmental benefit of their people.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering your questions.
T. S. Jayne, Milu Muyanga, Ayala Wineman, Hosaena Ghebru, Caleb Stevens, Mercedes Stickler, Antony Chapoto, Ward Anseeuw, Divan van der Westhuizen, David Nyang
This study was supported by: (i) the Food Security Policy Innovation Lab, led by Michigan State University and funded by USAID/Bureau for Food Security; (ii) the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA), led by the Institute of Development Studies/Sussex and funded by DfID/UK; (iii) the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM); (iv) the Africa Agricultural Policy Unit at the World Bank; and (v) the Agriculture and Agroindustry Department, African Development Bank.
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.
By Krystyna Solarana, Communications Specialist, USAID’s Tajikistan Country Office
In a brightly-lit room in southwest Tajikistan in late September, 30 men and women gathered to bid on land use rights in the country’s first-ever public land auction.
Transferring land use rights from the state to private individuals, in a transparent and fair process, marks a major milestone on Tajikistan’s journey to self-reliance.
When Tajikistan declared independence in 1991, all of its agricultural lands were part of large-scale Soviet-era collective farms. Since then, the Government of Tajikistan’s land reform efforts have made tangible progress, but up to 35 percent of the country’s agricultural lands remain under state control.
Land use rights auction advertisements attract hopeful bidders. / Rustam Sharipov for USAID
Land reform is essential for the development of the agricultural sector, and critical to this is securing land rights for farmers to empower them to feel ownership over the land they cultivate.
Although there is still no legal mechanism for buying land in Tajikistan, public and transparent land auctions give any interested Tajik citizen the ability to purchase a three-year lease on a land plot and the autonomy to decide what they will do with the land and what crops to grow.
With the confidence that the land they work on belongs to them for a certain time period, farmers are more willing to make long-term investments that ultimately increase land productivity and profitability.
USAID is an ardent supporter of land reform, helping to strengthen land-related laws and policies so farmers can become more productive. In Tajikistan, the Feed the Future Land Market Development Activity works to strengthen land use rights for farmers and establish a land market where farmers can buy leases on agricultural land in a transparent and fair process.
Increased agricultural productivity will, in turn, lay the groundwork for improved food security and economic development.
One month before the auction, information advertising the auction was published and posted on public sites to raise awareness. Notices included details of the lots up for auction (size, location, starting price) and auction procedures.
Five land plots totaling almost 16 hectares were up for auction, with seven active bidders. Government representatives of Yovon district, the U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan, and USAID staff also attended the auction.
All participants in attendance had open and equal access to bid in the auction and the opportunity to lease agricultural land plots from the Land Reserve Fund, the government entity that holds state-owned land.
Winning bidders signed lease agreements with the local government and secured land use rights for the next three years.
USAID helps Tajikistan reach a key milestone on its journey to self-reliance. The first land auction on the leasing of agricultural lands emphasizes the importance of the new procedures for transparent and easy access to lands. Over the past 28 years, the Government of Tajikistan’s land reform efforts have made tangible progress; however, up to 35% of the country’s agricultural lands remain under state control. To address this, the Feed the Future Tajikistan Land Market Development Activity has supported the Government of Tajikistan’s efforts to establish a market system that allows for the transferability of land rights (buying, selling, and leasing rights). These auctions will also raise additional revenue for local governments for infrastructure restoration and maintenance.
Mounting evidence suggests that sub-Saharan Africa has undergone profound rural transformation since the early 2000s, though progress has been highly uneven across countries. Conventional views of African agriculture are in many respects becoming obsolete. Our review highlights the evidence of farm-level transformation in the region, identifies the key sources of dynamism in the sector, and proposes an updated typology of farms that reflects the evolving nature of African agriculture. We underscore the rising importance of an entrepreneurial class of African commercialized medium-scale farmers, and examine the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.
The size distributions of farms in many African countries are rapidly changing. In most of the countries for which national rural household surveys exist, and particularly those with substantial potential for cropland expansion, it is no longer true that the vast majority of farmland in Africa is under small-scale cultivation. The national shares of area under cultivation, the value of production, and marketed crop output on farms under five hectares has been declining over time, with corresponding increases in shares among medium- and large-scale farms. Medium-scale farms (defined here as farm holdings between 5 and 100 hectares) account for a rising share of total farmland, especially in the 5- to 25-hectare range where the number of these farms is growing especially rapidly. Medium-scale farms control roughly 20 percent of total farmland in Kenya, 32 percent in Ghana, 39 percent in Tanzania, and more than 50 percent in Zambia. Medium-scale farmers are a diverse group, reflecting several distinct pathways into medium-scale farming, including (1) the successful expansion of small-scale farms into medium-scale farms, generally in the 5- to 25-hectare range, through new land acquisition made possible because of increasingly active land markets; (2) the diversification into farming by rural nonfarm businesspeople and wage earners; and (3) land acquisitions by urban-based professionals, retirees, and rural elites. The relative importance of these pathways varies by country according to differences in potentially available cropland, the economic potential of that land, the ease of acquiring land through customary and statutory tenure systems, and the degree of farm scale bias of agricultural policies. The rapid development of land rental, purchase, and long-term lease markets has encouraged the growth of each of these pathways.
This trend is not happening everywhere. In densely populated countries such as Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and Rwanda, land scarcity and high land values are impeding the pace of medium-scale farm acquisitions, and the share of land under medium-scale farms is growing slowly if at all. However, as we establish in Section 2, the population-based Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS)-type data utilized in this study may underrepresent medium- and large-scale farm holdings, based on comparisons of larger farm censuses and LSMS data from the same year. Therefore, the share of cultivated land, farm production, and marketed output accounted for by medium-scale farms as reported in this review most likely are underestimated.
Causes and consequences of the rise of medium-scale farms
Farm size distributions in Africa have been changing for four reasons: the rise of land markets, the recent era of relatively high global food prices, agricultural policy reforms, and the growing influence of relatively wealthy and politically influential “emergent farmer” interests. The rise of medium-scale farms is affecting the region in diverse ways that are difficult to generalize. Many such farms are sources of dynamism, technical change, and commercialization of African agriculture. They attract private investment in crop buying and input suppliers, and in doing so they improve market access conditions for all surrounding farms regardless of scale. They also may make it more feasible for governments to raise taxes from the farm sector. However, medium-scale land acquisitions may exacerbate land scarcity in favorable rural areas, raise land prices, and crowd out young peoples’ access to land for farming.
Medium-scale farmers tend to dominate farm lobby groups and influence agricultural policies and public expenditures to agriculture in their favor. Nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from six countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia) show that urban households own 5 to 35 percent of total agricultural land, and that this share is rising in all countries where DHS surveys were repeated. This change suggests a new and hitherto unrecognized channel by which medium-scale farmers may be altering the strength and location of agricultural growth and employment multipliers between rural and urban areas.
African states seem to be generally supportive of such changes. They are keen to increase food production and marketed farm output to feed their rapidly swelling cities and reduce dependence on food imports. Putting land into the hands of capitalized, educated, and entrepreneurial African farmers may be viewed as supporting this objective. Medium-scale farms are attracting major new private investment by input suppliers that improve market access conditions for nearby smallholders. Farming areas with a high concentration of medium-scale farms attract greater investment by large-scale grain buyers. In Tanzania, small-scale farms are much more likely to rent mechanization services in areas with a high concentration of medium-scale farms. Other evidence from Tanzania indicates that smallholder household incomes are positively and significantly associated with the share of land in the district controlled by 5- to 10-hectare farms, after controlling for market access, rainfall, and other local conditions.
However, there are warning signs as well. The acquisition of land by outside investors certainly reduces the stock of land under customary tenure that will be accessible to current and future generations of local people. As traditional authorities sell land to outside investors based on willingness-to-pay criteria, their actions are raising the price of land, making it more difficult for young people to acquire land, and raising the likelihood that young people will exit farming and migrate out of the area. The rise of land markets is creating a new class of landless workers in Africa; having sold their land informally to others, they become dependent on the local nonfarm economy for their livelihoods.
Implications for agricultural and land tenure policies
A major policy question for African governments and international development partners concerns the future role of smallholder farms in Africa. While opinions are divided, our interpretation of available evidence is that governments may most effectively achieve their national development goals by explicitly promoting the productivity of smallholder farms to achieve agricultural and economic transformation with poverty reduction. Inclusive forms of rural income growth are likely to accelerate the pace and equity of structural transformation processes. Where competition for land is not intense, new investment in medium-scale farms can be a powerful source of economic dynamism, attracting private sector investments in input and output markets that improve market access conditions and the commercialization potential of small-scale farms. In such areas, questions of “either/or” might be misplaced.
However, in densely populated areas where small-scale farms predominate and where only limited additional land remains available for area expansion, the priority is clear: focus on promoting the productive potential of small farms, realizing that success in this endeavor will lead to progressive movements of individuals and households out of farming and into off-farm jobs as part of the structural transformation process. In short, a successful smallholder-led agricultural strategy will result in a declining share of the labor force in farming over time.
Inclusive forms of rural transformation will require greater attention to supporting smallholder farms even as larger farms gain greater traction in the region. Given the diverse nature of extant customary land tenure systems in Africa and of the threats to tenure security facing different landholders and regions, policies to strengthen tenure security and regulate land transactions in Africa will need to be carefully tailored to the local tenure context and needs of different landholders to affect perceived tenure security and agricultural outcomes. Where land rights derive primarily from community membership, customary tenure systems effectively regulate within-community transactions, and external actors pose the primary threat to land rights, land registration at the community level accompanied by formal recognition of customary tenure institutions may be sufficient to reduce insecurity. In other areas where land rights are already individualized and internal actors pose the greatest tenure security threat, and especially where informal transactions involving outsiders are common, a more costly and time-consuming investment in registering individual land rights and transactions may be needed to secure existing rights and avoid conflicts that customary institutions will not be able to manage.
Implications for national statistical agencies
We do not yet know how generalizable these trends are across the region. However, existing population-based data collection platforms may systematically underreport a dynamic segment of African agriculture: the medium-scale farms. This omission, however understandable, has profound implications. Under the status quo, African governments cannot accurately monitor, much less understand, how farm structure is changing over time. Similarly, policymakers cannot adequately address such routine questions as the magnitude and location of marketed agricultural surplus. These questions are important for guiding strategic policy decisions aimed at stimulating agricultural growth, reducing rural poverty, and managing strategic food reserves and trade policies.
Redressing this informational blind spot will require new modes of data collection. We advocate for the expansion of agricultural sample census surveys to better capture the magnitude, location, and other characteristics of this growth of medium and large farms that currently structured LSMS-type surveys cannot adequately capture. We also advocate for the systematic collection of data on nonlocal land control—that is, ownership or other usufruct rights over rural agricultural land held by urban or other nonlocally residing households. This data collection demand will require new approaches to sampling, listing, and enumeration, as well as questionnaire designs that explicitly capture nonlocal holdings.
This blog was originally published onClimateLinks.
In Ghana, a changing climate is affecting the production of cocoa, one of the country’s major cash crops and its second leading foreign exchange earner. USAID and Winrock International worked together to produce ECO Game: Northern Ghana to provide communities with a better sense of land use planning and ecosystem services. The purpose of the game is to show players that more sustainable land uses lead to better long-term outcomes. A follow-up, called ECO Game: Ghana Deforestation-Free Cocoa, is currently under development and scheduled for release in late 2019.
Once an indulgence reserved for Mayan rituals or European high society, chocolate has become a treat that millions of people around the world delight in every day. The basis of this enormous industry is the small Theobroma cacao tree, which produces pods along its trunk whose seeds are processed into chocolate. These trees dominate Ghana’s once heavily forested Western Region. The country supplies 20% of the world’s cocoa. The commodity forms the backbone of its economy, and is the primary livelihood of over 800,000 Ghanaians.
Yet cocoa yields in Ghana are declining, with already aging farms suffering from exposure to higher temperatures and drier conditions associated with climate change, as well as pests and diseases. Sustaining the cocoa industry in Ghana, and all those who rely on it, requires a landscape-scale approach to rehabilitate farms, protect natural forests to mitigate climate change and bolster resilience, and empower communities to invest in long-term solutions.
Addressing Threats to Ghanaian Cocoa
USAID’s Supporting Deforestation-Free Cocoa in GhanaActivity is working to accomplish these objectives by combining the financial resources, political will, and public participation to reduce deforestation and promote reforestation by improving tenure security, rehabilitating old and diseased cocoa farms, and promoting participatory community land use planning.
While improving tenure security and the benefits of rehabilitating cocoa farms offer clear, direct benefits to participating communities, the role of natural forests in enhancing long-term mitigation of and resilience against climate change is a harder message to effectively convey. And given the tantalizing draw of gold mining, despite devastating environmental impacts, the imperative to bring to light the value of natural systems is even more critical.
USAID’s Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (AgNRM)project faced this dilemma in northern Ghana, where Winrock International worked to improve sustainable community land use planning. The project completed a technical study on economic benefits and ecosystem services associated with common land uses in the region, yet deep down, we knew that few would read it – not least farmers in rural communities for whom the information was intended.
From informal social norms that inhibit inheritance rights to inconsistencies in law regarding marriages, women in Kosovo face numerous barriers that limit their property rights. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through its Property Rights Program in Kosovo, made great strides over the past 5 years increasing women’s property ownership and land rights. In addition to working with the Government of Kosovo to develop a National Strategy and adopt legislation to improve property rights, USAID’s Property Rights Program launched a national behavior change campaign, which resulted in a positive behavior shift with the percentage of women who initiate inheritance proceedings rising from 0.3 percent in 2015 to 14 percent in 2018.
Traditionally low levels of property ownership by women in Kosovo
In Kosovo, the cultural traditions of informality and patriarchy have created multiple challenges to property rights administration and women’s access to property. In 2014, the Kosovo Cadastral Authority reported only 15 percent of women owned immovable property. Low levels of property ownership indicated that women are limited in their ability to be full economic actors. USAID conducted a baseline survey in 2015 and discovered that the percentage of women who initiate inheritance proceedings was shockingly low at 0.3 percent. Additionally, the percentage of women reporting that they inherited property was only 3.8 percent. While tradition and accepted social attitudes partly explain these statistics, a lack of information and sensitization about women’s property rights also contributed to these numbers.
Snapshot: After learning about her rights through USAID-supported trainings, Valbona Ajeti and her husband registered their property in both of their names instead of just his. This ensured that Ajeti would not be rejected for a loan from the local bank to develop her food production business.
“My business was not always this big, I had some machines and a small number of people engaged. Now, having a parcel carried in my name from my husband’s inheritance will be a boost to my success as a businesswoman,” declares Ajeti. She now has no limitations on getting loans and expanding her business in terms of space, larger equipment and an additional workshop for her staff.
Overcoming cultural barriers to increase women’s land and property rights
To address traditional concepts of property and inheritance, USAID, in close collaboration with the Government of Kosovo, civil society, schools, and media, developed and carried out a far-reaching social and behavioral-change communications campaign to shift societal attitudes toward acceptance of women to inherit and own property. The campaign, paired with building safeguards for women into legislation, produced results. The percentage of women who initiate inheritance proceedings rose 46-fold, from 0.3 percent to 14 percent, and the percentage of women reporting that they have inherited property tripled, from 3.8 percent to 13.7 percent.
Even though these numbers remain low, the interventions demonstrated that societal norms, culture, and traditions do not present an insurmountable obstacle to women’s property rights. These numbers also suggest that going forward women will likely continue to benefit through increasing levels of inheritance and property ownership.
Snapshot: After learning about her rights through USAID-supported trainings, Valbona Ajeti and her husband registered their property in both of their names instead of just his. This ensured that Ajeti would not be rejected for a loan from the local bank to develop her food production business.