AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS II ( LAND TENURE AND LAND REFORM )

Introduction

• Land is an important factor of production.
• Without land it is impossible to practice the agricultural business.
• However the efficiency of utilization of land is influenced to a large extent by the condition of holding the land.

Land Tenure

• Land tenure is defined as the possession of the legal rights to the use of land.
• Various kinds of rights to the use of land give rise to different tenure systems.

Land Tenure System

• All land tenure systems fall into two major classes, namely:

Collective Tenure Systems

This includes:

 Communal Tenure Systems

• This involves the possession of rights over land by the whole community.
• It works quite well under conditions of unlimited, land res

 Advantages of Communal Tenure

• Landless problem does not exist.
• Land is not fragmented.
• Allows for free movement of animals in search of better pastures and water.
• Promotes community spirit among the members.

Disadvantages of Communal Tenure

• No incentive among the users to conserve the land resources.
• Everybody strives to maximize returns from the land without the drive to invest, for example, in terms of soil conservation and maintenance of soil fertility.
• There is a tendency of overstocking and continuous cropping; which leads to soil erosion and loss of land productivity.
• As a result of communal grazing of livestock, it is impossible to improve livestock through;
  • controlled breeding,
  • proper feeding,
  • disease and parasite control.
• Since there is no title deed, (certificate of ownership) it is virtually impossible to secure loans to develop the land.

Co-operative Tenure System

• This category includes various collective arrangements under the government or other authorities.
• Farmers voluntarily group together and buy land which they subsequently operate on co-operative basis.
• Examples are co-operative ranches.

 Advantages of Co-operative Tenure

• No land disputes.
• Labour is well utilized.
• Profit is distributed according to the number of shares.
• Resource use is enhanced for high production.

 

Disadvantages of co-operative tenure.

• Incase of poor management everybody will loose.
• No individual title deed hence cannot secure loans.

 State ownership

• Land is owned by the whole state and is refered to as government land.

Examples in Kenya;

• Areas not allocated to individuals
• Land under local county councils/cities and towns
• Land under forest, game reserve and parks, land for infra-structure and public utility

Advantages of state ownership

• Generation of income for the state
• All the citizens benefit from whatever comes out of the land.

Disadvantages

• Non-competitive in terms of production
• No individual motivation when working on the land.

Individual Tenure system

The various forms of individual land tenure are;

• Owner operator,
• Plantation and Concestion,
• Land-lordism/Tenancy

 

Owner operator

• This category includes all persons who operate on land to which they have absolute individual rights.
• Examples are the majority of individual land owners in areas where demarcation and registration of land has taken place and title deeds issued.

Advantages

• The owner is free to make permanent production plans.
• The owner can pledge the land title deed to secure loans(credit) from lending agencies for further development
• An individual is motivated to work harder than when under communal arrangement
• Managerial failures usually affect small units of production and are therefore negligible.
• It is easy for the owner to get agricultural advice.

Disadvantages

• Cost such as machinery for processing may be too high for the individual owner
• Innovation may be inadequate due to low levels of education.
• Lack of capital to invest.

Plantation and concession

• In this form of land tenure, the individual is usually a company or a corporation.
• Most of them engage in the production of only one commodity
• They are rigid in their production plans and in most cases labour is hired on wage basis.
• Example are coffee, tea, sugarcane, sisal estates in Kenya.

Advantages

• High production from the land hence high economic gains
• Allows foreigners to use and develop land
• No land disputes
• Create employment for the local people
• Generate government revenue through taxation.

Disadvantages

• Individuals own large pieces of land while others are landless
• Large areas of land may be left underdeveloped.
• Foreigners may repatriate profit to their countries.

Landlordism and tenancy

• The arrangement here involves the ownership of land by one individual or group of individuals (landlord) who lease it to another individual (tenant).
• A legal lease specifies the length of time during which the tenure is operative;

and that serves as a security of tenure to the tenant.

• The efficiency of production in this arrangement is greatly affected by the length of lease, its legal backing and rent payable.

Advantages

• A person without land can get a chance to use land.
• A landlord who cannot operate the land, for any reason, can still earn income by leasing it to a needy tenant.
• It is a flexible arrangement; that is, it allows room for change of production plans should need arise.
• Security of tenure gives the tenant incentive to invest depending on the length of tenure.

Disadvantages

• Poor land use and low production if the tenant does not have enough funds to improve on land.
• Tenants cannot produce long term crops,
• Landlords can exploit the tenants by overcharging.
• Lack of incentives to improve land by the tenants since it does not belong to them.

Land Reforms

Definition

• Land reform is any organized action designed to improve the structure of land tenure and land use.

Forms of Land Reform

Land Consolidation

• This means bringing or putting together, into one piece; fragmented parcels or pieces of land scattered over a large area.

The objective of land consolidation are :

• To save on time spent while moving from one piece of land to another.
• To facilitate effective and efficient farm planning.
• To create an incentive among land operators to invest on and develop land.
• To facilitate mechanization and improve production through efficiency.
• To improve level of production through effective supervision of the labour force and sound farming methods,

Land Fragmentation and Sub-division

• This is the subdividing of a (large) piece of land into smaller portions.
• Sometimes it becomes necessary to sub-divide land for the following reasons:
• To sell part of the land.
• The parent may wish to subdivide and distribute his land among the sons, daughters and other dependants.
• The government may decide to subdivide large farms in order to settle landless citizens.

Land Adjudication and Registration

• Land adjudication involves;
• Establishing the legitimate ownership,
• Measurements (to make permanent boundaries)
• Recording of land details.
  • Once land has been adjudicated, and any disputes concerning the same land are settled,
  • It is then registered in the “Register of Land”.
  • And the owner is issued with a land title deed or certificate of legal ownership.

Importance of land title deed

• The legal owner of the land has security of tenure and hence an incentive to invest and improve productivity.
• A farmer can mortgage the land by offering land title certificate as a security to loaning agencies to secure capital to finance development projects.
• If a farmer who cannot operate the farm, he can still earn income from it by leasing it.
• Disputes concerning land boundaries and/or land ownership no longer arise.

 

Land Settlement and Resettlement

Definition

• Land settlement means the occupation of land which was previously uninhabited.
• Land resettlement, on the other hand, is the transfer of people from an already densely populated area to a sparsely populated one.

Objectives

• To settle the landless citizens.
• To relieve population pressure in densely populated areas.
• To increase or promote agricultural productivity by farming on land that was previously unused or lying idle.
• To create self-employment thus improving the living standards.
• Land reclamation, especially by creating tsetse fly-barriers.