Property rights regimes and the sub-Saharan African agrarian crisis: A case study of the indigenous land tenure system and agricultural innovations in the Lotuho District of Southern Sudan.

摘要

The per capita food output for domestic consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa is in crisis. A debate now rages in the political economy of the region's agricultural development over the following questions: Are the indigenous land tenure systems the root cause of the crisis? Is land tenure privatization, in the Western-style, the panacea? Two divergent schools of thought, the replacement and adaptation paradigms, define the debate. The former model answers both questions in the affirmative by contending that the indigenous land tenure relations are generally static and insecure, which in turn constrains investments in agricultural innovations. Consequently, production is likewise constrained. The latter (adaptation paradigm) envisages indigenous land tenure relations as invariably dynamic and flexible and, thus, proffers a pragmatic land tenure reform legislation. This study contends that the propositions of the replacement school are too general and perhaps misconceived.; Data were sought on the indigenous land tenure laws and land improvements in the Lotuho District, Southern Sudan. Some 124 farmers were sampled. Data were generated through multiple methods and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The balance of evidence suggests that indigenous land laws are dynamic and provide tenure security, which in turn engenders investments in agricultural innovations, but only on parcels characterized by high tenure articulation. Hence, indigenous tenures are not generally the root cause of the agrarian crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa and a universal leasehold model is no panacea for the crisis. Instead, the crisis should be resolved by improving poor rural living conditions and political stability, the principal causes of social disruption in the region.; Nevertheless, there are some circumstances where focused tenure reform programs may succeed in generating much needed investments in agriculture to boost food production. These include cases in which: (1) Indigenous land tenure systems are weakened or extinct, (2) Regularly cultivated farmland is periodically re-divided and reallocated by lottery to accommodate new members of the community and (3) Major project interventions for settlement or irrigation development require the full-scale redesign of the land holding system.