Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 77, Spring 1999, p. 1-4

Smallholder perceptions of land tenure in Mozambique

by Paul J. Strasberg¹

The Council of Ministers of Mozambique recently approved regulations to accompany the new land law (Law no. 19/97) that went into effect 1 January 1998. A critical impetus behind these actions was the belief that a new legal and regulatory framework was required to reduce the incidence of land conflicts between largeholders and smallholders. Based on media reports from across the country, it appeared that such conflicts had been increasing in both frequency and intensity as smallholders, forced to flee during the war, began to return home and reoccupy their land area. While millions of hectares of land concessions had been provisionally granted under the former legal framework (Law no. 6/79) with apparently little or no consultation with local communities to determine the extent to which smallholders were already occupying the land being requested, the new legal framework mandates that local community consultation be a component of any new or pending request for land proffered by outside investors to government.

Government policy with respect to granting land concessions (largely from now defunct state farms) has focused on allocating these prime areas to Mozambican and international large-scale agribusiness interests. Implicitly assumed is that land access in the smallholder sector, allocated through customary tenure systems, is abundant.

A recent LTC research report analyzes key tenure and access issues affecting smallholders in the northern Cotton Belt.² The report, based on smallholder survey data collected from 1994 through 1996, suggests that, although the new land law may improve tenure security for smallholders who experience conflicts with largeholders, two key areas of policy concern have been neglected. First, while provisions in the new legal framework to safeguard local community land-use rights vis-à-vis outsiders are important, they will not be sufficient to eliminate and/or adjudicate land conflicts between smallholders themselves. Second, while much attention has been devoted to the legal and regulatory component of land tenure in Mozambique, research results reveal significant variation in the size of household landholdings even when controlling for household size. Further, land access was found to be closely linked to key welfare indicators such as income and calorie availability; a weak nonfarm economy heightens the importance of land for the welfare of rural families. These results were surprising and contradicted the view held by many in the policy community in Mozambique that land access is unconstrained for smallholders.

Methodology

Using case study methodology, the LTC Mozambique Project has, since 1991, documented a number of smallholder conflicts on land formerly held by the state. In an effort to analyze these findings in a statistically rigorous fashion and determine whether these tenure-related conflicts were confined to the areas of case study or were more widespread, LTC collaborated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries/Michigan State University Food Security Project (FSP) to implement a household survey in 6 districts within Mozambique’s northern Cotton Belt. Prior to the LTC survey in January-February 1996, FSP had visited the same sample of 521 households at regular 4-month intervals between 1994 and 1996 to assess the impact of their participation in cotton production schemes organized around Joint Venture Companies (JVCs).

JVCs and land use in the Cotton Belt

Acknowledging the failure of the state farm sector in the Cotton Belt in the late 1980s, the Mozambican government invited Portuguese and British firms to form JVCs with government to revive cotton production systems in selected areas of influence in Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces. Three JVCs were formed, each enjoying the exclusive right to purchase cotton from smallholders within its area of influence. Promoting cotton through the JVC model was designed both to increase smallholder cash income as well as to improve food production by enhancing the availability of agricultural inputs and extension services. The JVCs were to inject capital to rehabilitate ginning facilities, build rural roads, and provide other infrastructure for the postwar reconstruction.

JVC cotton-related activities in the north have generated substantial debate on a number of issues, including the implications for smallholder access to land and food security.³ Some have suggested that land conflicts and smallholder concerns about tenure security are a significant problem in JVC areas and have suggested that a key cause is JVCs’ eviction of smallholders from the land they had been cultivating. Others have posited that while the JVCs or other private largeholders (privados) have not acquired lands that legally belonged to smallholders, the JVCs’ presence has nevertheless generated land conflicts for two reasons. First, the JVCs and privados have acquired land-use rights for blocos formerly possessed by now-defunct state farms. These blocos themselves could be seen as an unjust colonial legacy that entailed the dispossession of smallholders from their land and compressed smallholders onto more marginal areas. Second, smallholders moved onto and cultivated these areas during the war years of the 1980s and early 1990s, when the state farms no longer had the resources to cultivate the land. The more recent arrival of JVCs and privados holding provisional or permanent titles could be generating conflicts with smallholders who have been cultivating the areas for 10 years or more.

Research questions

The recent land legislation provides remedies for smallholders who experience land conflicts with outsiders by mandating community consultation when investors seek land concessions in rural areas. What is the perception and experience of smallholders with regard to tenure security?

Given Mozambique’s low population density and traditional smallholder production technologies, it is assumed that land access is abundant for rural households. To what extent is land an abundant resource for rural households? And, for households with relatively small farm sizes, to what extent do other, nonfarm income-generating opportunities exist?

Findings

• Smallholders perceive their land tenure security to be weak. Four out of five respondents across the sample of 521 households reported that land conflicts were a serious concern in their communities while nearly half expressed concern about losing land in the future. An analysis of smallholder experience with conflicts demonstrates that JVCs and privados are an important source of the problem. Across the study zone, one-half of all smallholder conflicts were with either JVCs or privados.
• The existence of land conflicts between largeholders and smallholders has caused some to criticize the JVC model of promoting smallholder integration into the market economy. It is important to move away from this perspective rooted in the assumption that largeholders and smallholders are inherently involved in a zero-sum struggle over land. While land conflicts between smallholders and JVCs are problematic, there are positive contributions that the JVCs have brought including improved inputs and credit, investment in rural roads, and rehabilitation of cotton-ginning facilities.
• One-half of all land conflicts experienced by smallholders were with other smallholders. This challenges the belief that the principal cause of tenure insecurity in rural areas can be attributed to outsiders and suggests that understanding the dynamics of local-level tenure systems is increasingly important.
• Almost all policy attention related to land tenure in Mozambique has focused on reforming the legal framework. While the new land law is a positive step, we suggest that government focus more on smallholder land-access issues. When we analyzed the relationship between land access and household income, two clear patterns emerged. First, in each study zone, fully one-quarter of the population has access to approximately 0.5 hectare per laborer while the richest quarter of the population owns 3-5 times that amount. Second, household income is closely linked to farm size. In short, with a weak nonfarm economy, those with less land access than their neighbors are likely to be significantly poorer. These results challenge the perception of a land-abundant countryside and suggest the importance of improving the understanding of the reasons behind these variations.

Notes

¹ LTC Associate Researcher.
² Paul J. Strasberg and Scott Kloeck-Jenson, “Challenging Conventional Wisdom: Smallholder Perceptions and Experiences of Land Access and Tenure Security in Mozambique’s Cotton Belt,” draft (Madison, December 1998).
³ FSP research has demonstrated that over a 12-month period, ceteris paribus, per capita incomes of cotton growers increased by 25–36% in the JVC areas of influence compared to noncotton growers as the firms supplied seed and insecticide to smallholders (see Paul J. Strasberg, “Smallholder Cash-Cropping, Food-Cropping and Food Security in Northern Mozambique,” Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1997). More definitive assessments of the effects of JVC-promoted cotton production on smallholder welfare necessitate further research over a longer period. Nevertheless, the existing analysis and the continuing enthusiasm among smallholders for participating in these schemes suggests that cotton production has produced material advantages for many participants.

Copyright © 1999 by Land Tenure Center and Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
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