1. LAND TENURE AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY
Mrs. Abigail Ampomah Adaku
Agric Econs and Agribusiness
University of Ghana

2. Presentation Outline Introduction Definition of Land Tenure
Patterns of land Tenure
Tenure and incentives

3. Land Tenure
Condition of land tenure set the context within which all efforts to raise agricultural output must operate.
Serfdom: system of local land lord and peasants

4. Patterns of Land Tenure
Land tenure deals with the rights and patterns of control of the land resource.
Land tenure as a term does not suggest classification based only on the manner of ownership of land
Many other factors are important in determining the operational characteristics of land tenure systems.

5. Patterns of land tenure
Large scale modern farming or ranching: Usually refers to a large crop or livestock raising farm which uses some hired labour but where many of the activities are highly mechanized.
Land privately owned supplemented by grazing leases on land owned by the state

6. Patterns of Land tenure
Plantation agriculture:
Large piece of land used for tea or rubber cultivation, usually for export
Large size of Hired labour used for cultivation
Land is privately held and owners provide management of the land

7. Patterns of Land tenure
Latifundia:
Term used on Latin America and Europe
Refer to large estate or ranch on which hired labour have servile relation with owner.
Sharecropping: form of tenancy in which the farmer share his crops with landlord.

8. Patterns of Land tenure
Family Farm or Independent proprietor: Own plots of land and operate them mainly with own family’s labour.
Land Lord-Tenant: Usually refer to situations where an individual family farms a piece of land owned by a landlord to whom the farmer pays rent. Ownership of the land is separated from managerial and laboring function.
Family farm- owner cultivator system, size of family varies; nuclear or extended
Land lord –tenant: make resemble two extremes owner cultivator (landlord provides only land)
And plantation (landlord takes much of the managerial function)

9. Patterns of Land tenure
Absentee Landlords: Owners turn to live in cities far away from the land they own. Landlords who live close have little to do with it except to collect rent.
Communal Farming: Here villages may still own some of their land jointly. Individuals and families may farm plots on communal land, gaining access by custom or by allocation from community leaders.

10. Patterns of Land tenure
Collectivized agriculture:
Refers to agricultural systems found in parts of former Soviet Union, China and Israel.
Except for small family plots, is owned by a cooperative whose members are typically all or part of the residents of a single village.
Management is by a committee elected by the village or appointed by government authorities and members of the cooperatives share in output on basis of contribution or need.
Also Co-operative farms

11. Patterns of land tenure
There are numerous variations within and between these categories.
The list give some idea of the great range of land-tenure systems that exist in the developing world.
The kind of land-tenure system existing in any given country has an important bearing on economic development for several reasons.

12. Land tenure and Incentives
Prevailing land-tenure arrangements have a major influence on the welfare of the farm family.
Sharecropping, effect on food security and investment in land improvement
Important impact of the land-tenure system is on the prevailing degree of political stability.
Families that own land they cultivate tend to feel they have a stake in the existing political order, even if they are quite poor.

13. Tenure and Incentives
Land-tenure systems also have a major impact on agricultural productivity.
Owner operator
Landlord-tenant relations – sharecropping
Farms with large number of hired labours have an even more difficult incentive problem, compounded by a management problem. Farm labourers are paid wages and typically do not benefit at all in any rise in production.

14. Tenure and Incentives
One way round the difficulty is to pay on a piece-rate basis.
Incentives under communal farming suffer in a different way.
Each individual family has an incentive to use the land to the maximum extent possible
But no one has much of an incentive to maintain or improve the land because the benefits of individual improvement efforts will go not mainly to the individual but to everyone who uses the land.
Piece-rate, how many baskets are picked. Works well with harvesting

15. Economists call this the public goods or free-rider problem
Economists call this the public goods or free-rider problem. The tragedy of the commons.
Collectivized agriculture has some of the incentive and management problems of both plantation and communal agriculture, but with important differences.
Because the land is owned in common, the free-rider problem is present, but its impact is modified by paying everyone ‘work points’ on the basis of amount of work they actually do.

16. Tenure and Incentives
at the end of the year the total number of work points earned by collective members is added up and divided into the value of the collective’s output, thereby determining the value of each work point.
The individual member has a dual incentive to work hard. More work means work points, and indirectly it leads to higher collective output and hence a higher total income for that individual.

17. Tenure and Incentives
The main problem of the collective system is that an individual can sometimes earn work point by saying he/she worked hard, when in fact that person was off behind a tree sleeping.
Improved supervision will address this problem but introduce another problem associated with plantation agriculture with hired labour.

18. Tenure and Incentives
From an incentive and management point of view, therefore, the family owned farm would seem to be the ideal system.
One important consideration left out in the analysis so far economies of scale.
In agriculture economies of scale may exist b/s certain kinds of machinery can be used efficiently only on large farms.

19. Tenure and Incentives
On small farms tractors and combined harvesters may be badly underutilized.
This consideration underlies the choice of Latin American countries that large scale farming is the most appropriate way to increase agricultural production and exports.
Economics of scale may also exist b/s large collective units are better at mobilizing labour for rural construction activities than are individual family farms.

20. THANK YOU

21. QUESTIONS
Name and explain the land tenure types in Ghanaian agriculture.
Discuss the incentives associated with the different tenure arrangements and recommend which is best for agricultural modernization and development.
Write a memo to the district Chief Executive of your area explaining to him/her the land-tenure system in the area and how it retarding agricultural development and what must be done