Is the land reform program going to redistribute land to individual farmers or it just formalising the tribal system? Can you expand on how the land reform worked in Rwanda? The economist article is kind of vague and also behind a paywall.
The two laws passed were the Customary Land Rights and the National Lands Commission Acts in 2022. It doesn't have anything to do with land redistribution.
Customary Land Rights Act grants land owning and land using communities the right to Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) over all industrial projects on their lands.
Then the National Land Commission Act, which establishes local land use committees "to secure effective and holistic land administration", and 30% of people in the committee must be women.
In reality, it's just weakening the power of chiefs a bit. Usually companies who mine gold, titanium or diamonds, or grow palm oil negotiate with the Chiefs. Now this law will involve transparency to the people who live in the communities too. The idea is "free and informed consent". Before people could be kicked out without knowing because only the chiefs were spoken to. This law gives the people to veto their land use or negotiate a contract if they desired instead of fully depending on the chief.
Rwanda has completely destroyed tribal tenure. All land by law is government owned land that is leased out. So even tribal chiefs who used to own land by custom law, is a 99 year land lease by the government.
In terms of Cereals (corn, rice, wheat, etc.), Sierra Leone makes more than Rwanda (2 tons per hectare over 1.5 tons per hectare) which are both poor yields.
In terms of fruits and veggies:
Rwanda has surpassed Sierra Leone is about to graduate from "Low Income food Deficit Country" for fruit and has passed Sierra Leone on vegetables, but still needs more growth on yields
Is the Rwanda system similar to the one in current day Ethiopia and pre 90s China where government owned agricultural land was leased out to individual farmers? Is the Rwanda system dominated by large farmers or by individual family farms? Is there any African country that had broad based land to tiller program as seen in the East Asian Tigers?
It's dominated by individual family farms in Rwanda.
The closest country to the program you mentioned that east asia did was Zimbabwe. But that was basically kicking out white farmers. However, Zimbabweans weren't trained in modern agricultural techniques, irrigation techniques, soil quality and etc. Mugabe's program turned Zimbabwe from a breadbasket to a country that can't feed itself.
In addition, most African counties don't really have a need for a "land to the tiller" program. Most east Asian countries were feudalistic societies that had landlords own huge farms. Meanwhile in large parts of Africa, most land ownership was communally owned, chief owned, or centralized by the state.
I'll give you examples of what land tenure was in Africa prior to European imperialism.
In ghana, the Ashanti Empire had land controlled and administered by chiefs.
In Ethiopia, the Solomonic empire was a feudalistic society similar to Japanese controlled Korea or Taiwan.
Rwanda had in the Rwanda kingdom had communal farming called "ubuhake".
Africa's poor agricultural yield mainly comes from lack of mechanization, many countries have insecure land tenure, poor soil maintenance, lack of affordable rural credit, insufficient storage systems, lack of irrigation systems, not having enough fertilizer.
One of the best countries that have been solving this issue has been ethiopia which went from less than making 1 ton of food per hectare to 2.7 tones of food per hectare. They are close to graduating from "low income food deficit country".
Wasn't the main problem with the Zimbabwe land reform that land went from white feudal lords to black feudal lords (who were generally less educated)? Wouldn't you expect the outcome to be different if it was a proper land to the tiller program as you saw in Asia?
Also Individual farmers don't have an incentive to maximise their yield if the land is owned by tribal chiefs. Doesn't Rwanda and Ethiopia show that moving to a system of individual family farms is a good way to increase yields? Is their any country which is taking Chief owned land and trying to lease it out to individual farmers.
Yes, black political elites did get a lot of land but there were plenty of Black Zimbabwean peasants who got land from land reform also. As I said in the previous comment, black Zimbabweans never learned modern farming techniques so production fell.
#2:
It takes substantial political will to remove chief owned custom law. Rwanda can execute like that because by western standards, Rwanda is "authoritarian". Sierra Leone's first draft of land reform removed tribal law completely. But after pushback from chiefs, they did the two laws I mentioned above instead.
#3:
I agree that African nations should completely move to a fully privatized farming property law or at the very least a government leasehold program like China did under Deng Xiaoping.
I think land reform and removal/reformation of chieftaincy is just one stumbling block, but there is still issues of using foreign currency to import tractors, providing rural credit, and making irrigation systems so yields don't die from drought.
It is worth mentioning that yields in Rwanda is still terrible for cereals (wheat, rice, maize, barley, oats, rye, millet, sorghum, buckwheat, and mixed
grains).
In Africa, only Egypt and South Africa have good farming productivity for cereals. Ethiopia is on the verge of beating the "Low Income Deficit Country" average of 2.81 tons per hectare for cereals.
Every other African countries is terrible at cereal farming including Rwanda.
Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Nigeria and many others still beat Rwanda in farming.
If you want to explore cereal yields more look here:
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Do you think fintech, as seen in India, can dramatically increase the availability of financial services to African farmers in the coming years?
I’m pleased you are writing these articles. I’m learning a lot of new information. Thanks!
Is the land reform program going to redistribute land to individual farmers or it just formalising the tribal system? Can you expand on how the land reform worked in Rwanda? The economist article is kind of vague and also behind a paywall.
The two laws passed were the Customary Land Rights and the National Lands Commission Acts in 2022. It doesn't have anything to do with land redistribution.
Customary Land Rights Act grants land owning and land using communities the right to Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) over all industrial projects on their lands.
Then the National Land Commission Act, which establishes local land use committees "to secure effective and holistic land administration", and 30% of people in the committee must be women.
In reality, it's just weakening the power of chiefs a bit. Usually companies who mine gold, titanium or diamonds, or grow palm oil negotiate with the Chiefs. Now this law will involve transparency to the people who live in the communities too. The idea is "free and informed consent". Before people could be kicked out without knowing because only the chiefs were spoken to. This law gives the people to veto their land use or negotiate a contract if they desired instead of fully depending on the chief.
Rwanda has completely destroyed tribal tenure. All land by law is government owned land that is leased out. So even tribal chiefs who used to own land by custom law, is a 99 year land lease by the government.
https://landportal.org/book/narratives/2023/rwanda#:~:text=The%20legal%20framework%20provides%20that,State%20through%20the%20LTRP53%20.
In terms of Cereals (corn, rice, wheat, etc.), Sierra Leone makes more than Rwanda (2 tons per hectare over 1.5 tons per hectare) which are both poor yields.
In terms of fruits and veggies:
Rwanda has surpassed Sierra Leone is about to graduate from "Low Income food Deficit Country" for fruit and has passed Sierra Leone on vegetables, but still needs more growth on yields
https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-production
Is the Rwanda system similar to the one in current day Ethiopia and pre 90s China where government owned agricultural land was leased out to individual farmers? Is the Rwanda system dominated by large farmers or by individual family farms? Is there any African country that had broad based land to tiller program as seen in the East Asian Tigers?
It's dominated by individual family farms in Rwanda.
The closest country to the program you mentioned that east asia did was Zimbabwe. But that was basically kicking out white farmers. However, Zimbabweans weren't trained in modern agricultural techniques, irrigation techniques, soil quality and etc. Mugabe's program turned Zimbabwe from a breadbasket to a country that can't feed itself.
In addition, most African counties don't really have a need for a "land to the tiller" program. Most east Asian countries were feudalistic societies that had landlords own huge farms. Meanwhile in large parts of Africa, most land ownership was communally owned, chief owned, or centralized by the state.
I'll give you examples of what land tenure was in Africa prior to European imperialism.
In ghana, the Ashanti Empire had land controlled and administered by chiefs.
In Ethiopia, the Solomonic empire was a feudalistic society similar to Japanese controlled Korea or Taiwan.
Rwanda had in the Rwanda kingdom had communal farming called "ubuhake".
Africa's poor agricultural yield mainly comes from lack of mechanization, many countries have insecure land tenure, poor soil maintenance, lack of affordable rural credit, insufficient storage systems, lack of irrigation systems, not having enough fertilizer.
One of the best countries that have been solving this issue has been ethiopia which went from less than making 1 ton of food per hectare to 2.7 tones of food per hectare. They are close to graduating from "low income food deficit country".
Wasn't the main problem with the Zimbabwe land reform that land went from white feudal lords to black feudal lords (who were generally less educated)? Wouldn't you expect the outcome to be different if it was a proper land to the tiller program as you saw in Asia?
Also Individual farmers don't have an incentive to maximise their yield if the land is owned by tribal chiefs. Doesn't Rwanda and Ethiopia show that moving to a system of individual family farms is a good way to increase yields? Is their any country which is taking Chief owned land and trying to lease it out to individual farmers.
#1:
Yes, black political elites did get a lot of land but there were plenty of Black Zimbabwean peasants who got land from land reform also. As I said in the previous comment, black Zimbabweans never learned modern farming techniques so production fell.
#2:
It takes substantial political will to remove chief owned custom law. Rwanda can execute like that because by western standards, Rwanda is "authoritarian". Sierra Leone's first draft of land reform removed tribal law completely. But after pushback from chiefs, they did the two laws I mentioned above instead.
#3:
I agree that African nations should completely move to a fully privatized farming property law or at the very least a government leasehold program like China did under Deng Xiaoping.
I think land reform and removal/reformation of chieftaincy is just one stumbling block, but there is still issues of using foreign currency to import tractors, providing rural credit, and making irrigation systems so yields don't die from drought.
It is worth mentioning that yields in Rwanda is still terrible for cereals (wheat, rice, maize, barley, oats, rye, millet, sorghum, buckwheat, and mixed
grains).
In Africa, only Egypt and South Africa have good farming productivity for cereals. Ethiopia is on the verge of beating the "Low Income Deficit Country" average of 2.81 tons per hectare for cereals.
Every other African countries is terrible at cereal farming including Rwanda.
Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Nigeria and many others still beat Rwanda in farming.
If you want to explore cereal yields more look here:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cereal-yield
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Do you think fintech, as seen in India, can dramatically increase the availability of financial services to African farmers in the coming years?