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Chapter 5 Sustainable agricultural intensification 165
several years rather than immediately, secure tenure
that provides the incentive for farmers to invest
their labour and capital is vital for their success.
Success of future endeavours to promote agricultural
technologies for climate change mitigation and/or
adaptation will also be predicated on security of
tenure for rural men and women. 267 Security of access
to land and other resources is also paramount for
livestock producers to be able to participate in more
sustainable intensification practices, including those
that require better integration between livestock and
crop production systems.
Acquiring more land is often part of the process
of escaping poverty. 268 In most cases, this is most
easily done by renting in land. On the other hand,
small landowners who want to diversify out of
farming need to be able to rent out their land
without losing it – since it often represents
important capital and a safety net. Land tenure
systems that allow renting in and out easily, can
contribute to creating an enabling environment for
more farmers to take up sustainable intensification
approaches, and there is also some evidence that
they can facilitate poverty reduction. For example,
land rental markets in China have improved tenant
household welfare by a quarter, enabled landlords
to diversify occupationally, and increased plot
productivity by around 60 per cent. Poorer groups
have also benefited, because as better educated
people join the non-farm labour force, poorer, less
educated farmers are able to rent in land from them.
This suggests that land rental systems should be
facilitated also in other regions. 269
Pricing and regulation
With agricultural technologies as with all else, prices
Randriamahefa tells how he migrated to
rent land and how he had different deals
with two owners. It was through the
second, more beneficial contract that he
finally made a breakthrough and
returned home as someone who had
succeeded. “I’d heard that the land up
there was productive, so I headed for
the fields and left the rickshaw pulling
behind… I rented land [for] 50,000 ariary
per hectare [but] we still split the
harvest with the owner… So there I
was, sitting on that land, paying the
rent, and dividing the harvest with the
owner… My friend supplied the oxen
to turn the soil. Then… having stayed
there, after two years things turned
[out well], and I had seed after that
harvest… with that I purchased two
head of cattle and a single ox. Then
my friend said to me, ‘Even though
you’ve made a little on this land, leave
this land that is making you suffer.
There is some land of a friend of mine
[and] there it’s only an even split [of
the harvest], and without rent for the
land as well.’ So I went and planted
that field that year, and it was a massive
harvest! I’d planted two gunnies [of
seed], and harvested 40 gunnies. And
there is a buyer, a factory that receives
the produce there… My suffering was
relieved, I was happy… I bought a
barrel again, a plough again, and
brought them home, and my relatives
said I was very successful for having
brought home those possessions!”
Randriamahefa,
male, 49 years, Madagascar
influence demand. Subsidies on agrochemicals and inorganic fertilizers, or on
agricultural water, all encourage their use, and indeed those subsidies played an
important role during the Green Revolution. In some regions, phasing out those
subsidies makes much sense (see box 18). In Asia, it has been suggested that doing