Nouvelles

Land Tenure Policies Key to Food Security in Rural Cape Verde: New study gives recommendations for policy makers

26 mars, 2008, Rome

Land tenure issues are a high priority in Cape Verde today. Different sectors – especially agriculture and tourism - are competing for land. Land tenure legislation and institutions are being revised to better address these land related conflicts. Cape Verde's Minister of Agriculture thus requested a study called the “The Importance of Land Tenure Issues for Food Security” ( in Portuguese).

The study aimed at:

- highlighting why land tenure issues are important for food security (and therefore the need to design land tenure policies that help reduce food insecurity and poverty); and

- providing recommendations to make sure that the on-going revision of land tenure legislation and institutions effectively contributes to food security.

Main Findings

The study showed that:

1. Food insecure households were more heavily dependent on agriculture than food secure households. They also had fewer plots and depended more on indirect arrangements such as sharecropping. Lack of access to land was often cited as the main hindrance to improving their standard of living.

2. Female-headed households are more prone to food insecurity because they have fewer plots and are less able to diversify production.

3. Indirect forms of land exploitation, especially sharecropping, contribute to food insecurity by:

- reducing available income (half or one third of the harvest goes to the land owner);
- creating land tenure insecurity (land can be taken back by the owner at anytime); and
- discouraging agricultural investment (land is not owned).

4. Land tenure security alone is not sufficient for reducing food insecurity and poverty in Cape Verde. Access to water, training and credit are also important.

Recommendations

Recommendations for policy makers include:

- Improve access to land for poor small farmers and empower them legally by involving community associations and decentralising land services.

- Compensate owners of protected areas when restrictions have critically limited their livelihoods.

- Support civil society organizations that work towards reducing indirect forms of land exploitation - such as sharecropping.

The Case Studies

Three case studies were conducted in the islands of Fogo, Santo Antão and Santiago. Regional workshops took place in these three islands and in Boa Vista. At the workshops, conclusions from the case studies were validated by local stakeholders.

In February 2007, results were also presented at a national workshop in Praia attended by over 120 people from national institutions, FAO and EC technical units, NGOs, universities and research institutes. The Minister of Agriculture thanked FAO and the European Commission for their technical and financial assistance and re-iterated the ministry's willingness to adopt the study's land policy recommendations.