Land policy and the proposed land tenure reforms of Government have important implications for the development of the agriculture sector in Zambia. The purpose of this report is to ‘identify the critical issues that will need to be assessed further if DFID decides to offer support to the agricultural sector.’
Media reports over the years have increasingly used the term “land grabbing:”
- Post Newspaper, 29th August 2000 - MMD cadres grabbing land in Kabangwe and Chazanga area of Chieftainess Mungule.
-Post Newspaper, April 15, 2010 - MMD cadres led by the Lusaka Provincial Chairman grabbing land from Ngombe resident
-Times of Zambia, 29th November 2002 - investors in tobacco farming grabbing land from poor villagers in Chipata, Kasenengwa and Chipangali constituencies in Eastern Province.
All land in Zambia is vested in the president, in trust for the people of Zambia, under the Land (Conversion of Titles) Act, 1975 (see p.16), SECTION4.The president has delegated landadministration to the Commissioner of Lands under Statutory Instrument No. 7 of 1964 and GazetteNotice No. 1345 of 1975, as amended. Land in Zambia is divided into State (formerly crown),Reserve, and Trust Lands, as well as park reserves.
This paper explores the politics of ‘customary’ land tenure, land reform, and traditional leaders in Zambia. In Zambia, as elsewhere in Southern Africa, the government at the behest of donors has implemented market-based tenure reform legislation. This legislation aims to improve the security of land tenure and to promote development through investment. The paper shows how complex, indeterminate, and contentious this tenure reform has been on the ground – particularly in relation to the 94 per cent of Zambian land that is held in ‘customary’ tenure.
In recent years, Zambia has witnessed increased interest from private investors in acquiring land for
agriculture. As elsewhere, large-scale land acquisitions are often accompanied with promises of capital
investments to build infrastructure, bring new technologies and know-how, create employment, and
improve market access, among other benefits. But agricultural investments create risks as well as
opportunities, for instance in relation to loss of land for family farmers. While much debate on ‘land
We use nationally representative survey data from two neighboring countries in Southern Africa – Zambia and Malawi – to characterize the current status of rural land rental market participation by smallholder farmers. We find that rural rental market participation is strongly conditioned by land scarcity, and thus is more advanced in Malawi than in lower-density Zambia. In both countries, we find evidence that rental markets contribute to efficiency gains within the smallholder sector by facilitating the transfer of land from less-able to more-able producers.
This paper presents the empirical findings of a research study undertaken in the Western Province of Zambia. The principal objective was to explore if the issuance of land ownership certificates (LOCs) improves the customary landholders’ perceptions of security of tenure. Thus, we test a null hypothesis that: ‘There are no significant differences in the perceived security of tenure between customary landholders with land ownership certificates and customary landholders without land ownership certificates’.
The use of modern seed varieties and other improved technologies is essential for farmers to significantly increase their crop harvest and improve their livelihoods. All over Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture productivity growth has remained very low over many decades irrespective of gender of the farmer. However, studies have shown that women farmers fare worse than the male counterparts in terms of adoption of improved technology and productivity.
Zambia remains committed to the socio-economic development planning of the country as reflected by the return to development planning in 2005. The Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP) for the period 2017- 2021 is the successor to the Revised Sixth National Development Plan, 2013-2016 (R-SNDP) following its expiry in December 2016. The Plan, like the three national development plans (NDPs) that preceded it, is aimed at attaining the long-term objectives as outlined in the Vision 2030 of becoming a “prosperous middle-income country by 2030”.
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