This paper explores the potential of land consolidation for dealing with land fragmentation in Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) rural customary lands – where the intention is to increase food productivity. In SSA’s customary lands, the use of mechanized farming technology and intensive farming techniques have largely failed to increase food productivity. This is despite foreign investment and the interest of the farmers to do so. In many cases, neither the farm parcel structure nor the land tenure arrangements support the use of, or investment in, mechanized equipment.

Rede. Landbouwhogeschool te Wageningen. 12 November 1959