Land Tenure

One of the major distinguishing features of smallstock production is that it can be carried out with very limited land resources, or to put it another way, independently of land ownership. This is particularly true of small-scale ("back-yard") poultry production and the production of rabbits and rodents, which can be carried out in the family homestead. Production of goats and sheep, in limited numbers and including specialized enterprises such as sheep-fattening for annual religious holidays, can also be carried out in the homestead using purchased feed, feed gathered from small areas of common or unclaimed land such as roadsides, or by allowing the sheep and goats to graze in such areas, or in combinations of the three.

Tenure, Poverty and Smallstock Ownership Common Property Systems References and Further Reading

This lack of dependence on land ownership or formal access to land through leasing is one of the reasons why smallstock production is so closely associated with the poor and with women, who often face constraints, formal or informal, in access to agricultural land. It is also a reason why smallstock production is such a potentially important pathway out of poverty.

Engaging with smallstock production on a larger scale does require some understanding of land tenure. Several points need to be understood:

Ownership of land is sometimes referred to as a “bundle of rights”. Different rights in a single piece of land may be held by different users: for example in a “traditional” land tenure system, the government may claim the ultimate ownership of land and the right to decide on its use, but in practice land is allocated by a traditional authority such as a chief, to a farmer who can then use it for crop production, and who may or may not have the right to pass it on in inheritance. Others may have rights to walk across the land, or to graze animals on certain parts of it, at certain times of year. In other systems a landowner may have the right (subject to overall government control) to sell land on the open market, or to rent it out, either for a cash rent, or a share-cropping arrangement.

There is a complex relationship between “formal”, “informal” and “traditional” rights in land. So-called “traditional” systems of land allocation may be informal or they may be heavily codified, and based on government-appointed chiefs, traditional authorities, or bureaucratic bodies such as village committees or land boards. Although there are strong moves in many parts of the world in favour of “titling”, strengthening and formalizing individual rights to land, sometimes explicitly designed to create a market in land, there is no very clear pattern of evidence that titling increases the real security of tenure of farmers, or encourages them to invest in the land, compared to less formal systems.

However, informal or traditional systems of land allocation may discriminate against women, particularly against widows or other female heads of households. There is some evidence in Africa of the widows of men who have died oh AIDS <link> being deprived of land by their in-laws and other community members.

Common property tenure of grazing land is very important in many more extensive small ruminant systems, or systems mixing small ruminants and larger stock such as cattle, camels or horses. Grazing land (and other resources such as forests) may be held communally at the level of a small village or a large tribal confederation. Livestock owners not of the landowning group may in practice enjoy considerable freedom to graze animals there. Open access land is often mistakenly referred to as common property. In many systems there may be a mix between private ownership of agricultural land (with certain specific rights such as grazing on crop-residues being held communally), common property in pastures near the village, and open access land further away.

There has been enormous debate over common property systems. Formerly, it was widely assumed they were inherently unstable and subject to overgrazing. Now the real controls, formal or informal, that communities can exert over the use of common property resources, the sustainability of such systems, and the special importance of common property to the poor, are all much better understood and appreciated.

Understanding land tenure systems, particularly informal or traditional systems, may involve sensitive qualitative interviewing within the overall framework of PRA. In some contexts, it may also be useful to carry out a more structured survey of a community to discover the range of variation in landholdings of different categories. Such surveys should only be done after a thorough qualitative understanding has been gained and the most relevant categories of information for a more structured study discovered. Land tenure systems for more extensive livestock production, particularly those involving some degree of common property management, can also be studied through participatory mapping and, equally importantly, follow-up questions using the map as a starting point.