This study assesses the impact of insecure land tenure on sustainable agricultural development in Africa to demonstrate how the economic profitability of agriculture strongly depends on land tenure security. The Republic of Benin is used as the case study following the country’s recent enactment of land law 2013-01 that focuses on reorganizing the land sector, which has suffered from inappropriate management since the colonial era.

Compelling evidence in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) shows that Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) has a positive impact on agricultural productivity. However, the uptake of CSA remains low, which is related to anthropogenic, or human-related, decisions about CSA and agricultural land use. This paper assesses households’ decisions to allocate agricultural land to CSA technologies across space and over time. We use the state-contingent theory, mixed methods, and mixed data sources. While agricultural land is increasing, forest land is decreasing across countries in SSA.

Improving agricultural production efficiency is an effective means to ensure food security and promote agricultural sustainable development in China. Stable agricultural land property rights help optimize the allocation of production factors and improve production efficiency, and it is of great practical significance to study the influence of farmland tenure security on agricultural production efficiency.