Land policies and their implications for smallholder agriculture in Africa
This report (PDF) from AGRA presents a review of national land and agricultural policies and policy formulation and implementation processes in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Zambia. The report presents lessons on good and bad practice of agricultural policy formulation and implementation in Africa and recommends strategies. It demonstrates that in the countries there is awareness of the link between land tenure security and the promotion of smallholder agriculture. The policies recognize that tenure insecurity is one of the major constraints to the growth of the agriculture sector, and propose policy options to clarify and strengthen tenure security as a strategy for improving smallholder productivity. Land titling and registration feature strongly in the policies as the means for improving tenure security, although actual details of how this is done vary from country to country. However, improved tenure security alone is not sufficient to address the challenges of smallholder productivity. Assassociated reforms in agricultural technologies, agricultural extension services, rural credit, rural transport, market access and other building blocks of the rural economy are equally important.