There is a new agenda for agriculture to not only produce enough food but also food of high nutritional quality and diversity. However, high population growth has resulted in land disputes and limited the extent to which agriculture can contribute to nutrition. One solution to ending these conflicts is promoting greater land tenure security, which is known to reduce land conflicts and improve incentives for land-based investments. This then leads to improved farm productivity. However, there is limited scientific evidence on the linkages between land tenure security and food and nutrition security.
In a recent IFPRI brownbag research seminar, held on December 11, 2019, Zephania Nyirenda, an independent consultant, presented a study that analyses the impact of land tenure security on household dietary diversity and calorie intake in Malawi.
The study defines land tenure security in two ways: (1) formal tenure security, due to holding legal and informal title documents such as a title deed, land sales receipt, tax receipt, or letter from chief; and, (2) informal tenure security, a situation when a household has never had any dispute over land and does not foresee any disputes over the next five years. The study combined legal and informal documentation as there are only a few households with legal land title documents in Malawi.
Nyirenda traces three main pathways (Figure 1) through which land tenure security can influence nutritional outcomes:
- Through increased land investments in soil conservation practices, which affects food production and productivity and ultimately leads to food and nutrition security
- Through land markets in which land can be rented out for an income, rented in for production purposes and used as collateral to secure financing for production inputs
- Through women empowerment where Nyirenda concentrates on women’s control over land as a proxy of women’s empowerment.
Figure 1. Conceptional framework
Using nationally representative household data from the fourth Integrated Household Survey (IHS4) the study showed that: (1) residence in urban areas; (2) household size; (3) age of household head; (4) gender of the household head; (5) education level of the household head, and (6) access to credit are all positively and statistically significantly associated with a household being land tenure secure. Using several empirical strategies, tenure secure households defined under formal law have statistically significant better outcomes as compared to tenure secure households defined under informal practices. Thus, tenure security as defined by formal law has a significant effect on the way households perceive their level of land tenure security.
Tenure secure households are also found to be economically better-off than tenure insecure households. Land tenure significantly influences investments and maintenance of soil conservation measures including improved soil fertility, quality and low extent of soil erosion. Tenure security is also associated with higher crop productivity and has positive impact on household dietary diversity and calorie intake. In addition, the study finds a statistically significant influence of women’s land tenure security on household dietary diversity. Therefore, policies that are targeted at improving household nutrition should have women’s empowerment at their core. Nyirenda expects that registration of customary land under the new land laws will significantly accelerate women empowerment and household nutrition in Malawi.
In the Q&A session, participants suggested focusing on tenure security as defined in Malawi so that policy recommendations are realistic to the local context. Furthermore, it was suggested to include income as a control variable since income affects both the likelihood of being tenure secure (obtaining a title document is a costly process) and the nutrition outcomes of households.
The seminar presentation can be viewed below.
Note: The study presented by Nyirenda was part of his work for the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC).
References and further reading
Alkire, S., R. Meinzen-Dick, A. Peterman, A. Quisumbing, G. Seymour, and A. Vaz. 2013. “The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index.” World Development 52: 71–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.06.007
Holden, S. T., and H. Ghebru. 2016. “Land tenure reforms, tenure security and food security in poor agrarian economies: Causal linkages and research gaps.” Global Food Security 10: 21–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2016.07.002
Lovo, S. 2016. “Tenure Insecurity and Investment in Soil Conservation. Evidence from Malawi.” World Development 78: 219–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.023
