Ownership security and land rights are important incentives to increasing land productivity and hence land value. This paper reviews the development of formal and informal land rights in Thailand over time and describes the present situation in which a significant amount of land is occupied by farmers without legally secured land rights in areas classified as forest reserves. A review of the literature on the economic implications of land rights suggests that farmers lacking secure ownership will have less incentive to invest.

Economists have generally argued that if a land tax is administratively feasible, then to increase efficiency it should be used to the exclusion of output taxes. This article shows that underlying this policy prescription is the assumption that institutions for pooling and spreading production risks are perfect. When account is taken of the imperfections in those institutions, some use of output taxes will be Pareto superior to a pure land tax regime and may induce higher output, as well. Henry George was wrong.

Under legislation adopted in 1992, Ukrainian law recongnizes private ownership of agricultural land, as well as collective and state ownership. Also in 1992, a program to transfer land from state ownership to collective and individual ownership was initiated on a large scale, along with procedures to restructure collective and state farms. The transfer of land ownership and restructuring of traditional farms create opportunities for private farming to develop in the Ukraine after decades of collective management of agriculture.

The Land Registration and Cadastre System for Sustainable Agriculture Project for Tajikistan will expand farm privatization through a repeater project to enable more rural people to become independent farmers and take management decisions in response to market forces, by providing them secure land use rights certificates distributed in a transparent and fair manner, and providing essential complementary support services.

The proposed project would aim to extend the benefits of secure landownership to up to 700,000 small farmers in Brazil's Northeast region and to improve the Government's ability to formulate land policies and administer land resources.

This issue brief argues that before ASEAN could engage in
meaningful dialogue with NGOs, it will first have to grapple with
a number of issues, namely, (1) food security for farmers that
likewise promotes poverty eradication and rural development; (2)
property rights as a fundamental human right of farmers; (3)
ensuring justice in poverty eradication and rural development
efforts; and (4) economic growth as a precursor for social
development.

This paper calls attention to the ambiguity of SAARC’s position
on the importance of land rights, as well as to the absence
of an official declaration from SAARC on land rights and issues
as these relate to farmers in the region. Judging by its official
documents, SAARC has no clear profile of the poor in South Asia.
At the minimum, SAARC needs to recognize the interrelatedness
of poverty alleviation, agricultural production, food security and
land rights/access to land. SAARC has yet to implement a program

Almost two-thirds of farming families from ethnic Ta’ang communities in Burma’s northern Shan State have lost land to the country’s powerful military, according to a new report.

The Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization, or TSYO, says 63 percent of farming families from the Ta’ang community in the area have had land confiscated by the military. The Ta’ang are also known as Palaung.

The 2008 report by ActionAid suggests that, since women and girls are overrepresented among poor and excluded people, the food crisis is having a particularly harsh impact on them.  According to the FAO, even before the current crisis women made up 60% of the chronically hungry.

[adapted from ActionAid] October, 2012- The report states that the importance of land to rural women goes beyond growing food. Having secure access to, and independent control over, land can mean the difference between, on the one hand, enjoying rights such as education and freedom from violence or, on the other, continual subjugation in society. ActionAid view security of land tenure for impoverished rural communities as a fundamental component of dignified, sustainable development and a crucial step towards reducing poverty and reducing inequality.

[via UN-HABITAT] How can we judge if a land tool is responsive to both women and men’s needs?

Despite progress on women’s rights, rights to land and security of tenure are not enjoyed equally by women and men in many parts of the world. This goes against international human rights, and also impacts negatively on households and the economy.

The Ethiopian government has committed egregious human rights abuses to make way for agricultural land investments, in direct violation of international law, said the Oakland Institute in a new briefing paper released in New Delhi today. The briefing paper, entitled "Unheard Voices: The Human Rights Impact of Land Investments on Indigenous Communities in Gambella,” calls on Ethiopia to put an end to the illegal forced evictions of indigenous peoples in areas targeted for land investment.