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While scholars agree on the importance of land rental markets for structural transformation in rural areas, evidence on the extent and nature of their operation, including potential obstacles to their improved functioning, remains limited. This study uses household-level data from six countries to start filling this gap and derive substantive as well as methodological lessons. The paper finds that rental markets transfer land to land-poor, labor-rich, and more productive producers throughout. But vast cross-country variation in transfers and the fact that female managers could possibly improve their income by leasing out land point towards barriers to participation that policy might address. Methodological and substantive conclusions are derived.

Land markets play a limited role in subsistence economies with low skill-intensity of agricultural cultivation, equally distributed land endowments and little movement out of agriculture to join the non-farm economy. But, as the economy starts to diversify, the scope for efficiency-enhancing land transfers beyond immediate kin and for longer than just one season assumes significantly greater importance. Lease markets can contribute to the diversification of the economic base in rural areas by allowing those with limited farming skills to take up non-agricultural employment or to migrate temporarily without losing their links to rural areas, and those with comparative advantage in agriculture to increase the size of the land they farm. Land sales, on the other hand, may allow households who want to move into the non-agricultural economy to mobilize the capital that will help them to exploit profitable economic opportunities. Programs aiming to provide higher level of tenure security and better land information systems have often been justified by noting their impact on lowering transaction costs in land markets. Registered land rights make it easier to identify rightful land owners, negotiate and enforce contracts, and reduce the risk of land owners not being able to recover land that they had rented out. This could in turn increase the number of efficiency-enhancing land market transactions; facilitate credit access via the use of land as collateral; and foster structural change and transformation. At the same time, in settings where market imperfections are prevalent, reducing transaction costs in one market will not necessarily improve outcomes across the board.

Het Old Burger Weeshuis Sneek (OBW) bestaat 425 jaar. Het OBW is een stichting die 325 ha landbouwgrond verpacht aan negen bedrijven (die zelf ook 160 ha inbrengen). De pachtopbrengsten van de grond worden gebruikt voor maatschappelijke en culturele doeleinden in de gemeente Sneek. Voorbeelden zijn bijdragen aan het Wilhelminapark, sportaccommodaties, het spoormuseum en een nieuw cultureel centrum. Hoe wordt het rentmeesterschap ingevuld?

This paper provides an overview of land reform in South Africa from 1994 to 2011, with the focus on the land redistribution. The government policies and associated implementation since 1994 have not generated expected social and economic results for a number of reasons. Even where land has been transferred, it appears to have had minimal impact on the livelihoods of beneficiaries, largely because of inappropriate project design, a lack of necessary support services and shortages of working capital, leading to widespread underutilization of land. There is no evidence to suggest that land reform has led to improvements in agricultural efficiency, income, employment or economic growth. Therefore, the current approach, based on acquisition of land through the open market, minimal support to new farmers, and bureaucratic imposition of production models loosely based on existing commercial operators, is unlikely to transform the rural economy and lift people out of poverty. The paper argues that there are two important missing aspects in the land reform program. First, there is an absence of any viable small-farmer path to development, which could enable the millions of households residing in the communal areas and on commercial farms to expand their own production and accumulate wealth and resources in an incremental manner. Making this happen would require radical restructuring of existing farm units to create family-size farms, more realistic farm planning, appropriate support from a much-reformed state agricultural service, and a much greater role for beneficiaries in the design and implementation of their own projects. Second, what is clearly missing from the governance tradition is the sustained focus on implementation, resource mobilization, and timely policy adjustment. Much more will be required for land reform program to contribute significantly to economic growth and to the redistribution of wealth and opportunities to the majority of the population.

Het Old Burger Weeshuis Sneek (OBW) bestaat 425 jaar. Het OBW is een stichting die 325 ha landbouwgrond verpacht aan negen bedrijven (die zelf ook 160 ha inbrengen). De pachtopbrengsten van de grond worden gebruikt voor maatschappelijke en culturele doeleinden in de gemeente Sneek. Voorbeelden zijn bijdragen aan het Wilhelminapark, sportaccommodaties, het spoormuseum en een nieuw cultureel centrum. Hoe wordt het rentmeesterschap ingevuld?