In line with the conventional view that customary land rights impede agricultural development, the traditional tenure system in Nigeria has been perceived to obstruct the achievement of efficient development and agricultural transformation. This led to the Land Use Act (LUA) of 1978.

Food First Backgrounder, Spring 2014, Vol. 20, No. 1

Introduction: Land, Race and the Agrarian Crisis

The disastrous effects of widespread land grabbing and land concentration sweeping the globe do not affect all farmers equally. The degree of vulnerability to these threats is highest for smallholders, women and people of color—the ones who grow, harvest, process and prepare most of the world’s food.

28 May 2014

GRAIN | La Vía Campesina

For immediate release

This briefing paper makes the case for proactive business engagement in respecting land rights and ensuring legal, fair and inclusive practices on land use, access to natural resources and equitable development opportunities. It outlines key challenges, provides an overview of existing instruments that can help companies address issues related to land, and points to practical entry points for improved business practices.

This research has been undertaken to improve our understanding of stakeholders’ knowledge and perception about ecosystem services (ES), which provides a valuable means of gaining insight into the opportunities and constraints that face ES management in a multiuser landscape. Land use preferences are influenced by a variety of motives, attitudes, and values intrinsic to every individual’s decisionmaking. Knowledge can affect attitudes and behavioral intentions, and a positive attitude toward the environment has been found to predict conservation practices.

This paper presents what is known about the role of agrarian reform and the subsequent counter reform in producing a successful dynamic evolution of Chilean agriculture.

Land tenure institutions in customary land areas of Sub-Saharan Africa have been evolving towards individualized ownership. Communal land tenure institutions aim to achieve and preserve the equitable distribution of land (and hence, income) among community members. Uncultivated forestland is owned by the community or village, and as long as forest land is available, forest clearance of forest is easily approved by the village chief.

On farm conservation of crop diversity poses obvious policy challenges in terms of the design of appropriate incentive mechanisms and possible trade-offs between conservation and productivity.

"In this paper we present the findings of a qualitative investigation into some dimensions and implications of policy volatility in the realms of natural resource (NR) governance and devolution in contemporary Sudan, with particular reference to Greater Kordofan. Our goal is to map out some aspects of the interplay between volatility, disempowerment processes affecting both state agents and the rural population, and certain problems of governance that are characteristic but not unique to Sudan.

FERN, the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), ClientEarth and the Centre for Environment and Development (CED) 
23 Janvier, 2014

Ce guide illustre les aspects clé des lois et des droits fonciers essentiels pour garantir la propriété et la contrôle des terres et des ressources par les communautés, exprimés également par le concept de la sécurité foncière des terres et des ressources. Il explique comment identifier et créer des possibilités de réforme législative et présente des exemples de réformes ayant eu lieu dans différents pays africains.

This publication, from the Global Land Tool Network, presents the grassroots mechanism it plans to promote for the effective inclusion of local community groups (grassroots). The involvement of the grassroots is crucial at all stages of land-related processes. However, many pro-poor land policies are developed and implemented with weak grassroots participation, leading to project failure or outcomes that do not assist women or people living in poverty.

This paper investigates the impact of
land tenure insecurity on the migration decisions of
China's rural residents. A simple model first frames
the relationship among these variables and the probability
that a reallocation of land will occur in the following
year. After first demonstrating that a village leader's
support for administrative land reallocation carries with it
the risk of losing a future election, the paper exploits