Land Tenure, Governance and Accountability in Nigeria: The Implications on Food Production to Feed the Present and the Future

Land is very vital for agricultural production, and for any nation that wants to be self-food sufficient. Different land reforms have taken place in Nigeria since 1960 with the aim of facilitating access to agricultural land, and make the nation self-sufficient in food production, but little changes have only been recorded. Bureaucracy by approving authorities in practice in communities where land is situated still hinders land acquisition for agricultural investment. This study therefore analyzes land policy, governance and accountability and draw out some implications on food production in Nigeria. The percentage of arable land to the total land area was 37.3 percent by available data in 2013, which suggests that smaller area is only available for cultivation with little for agricultural expansion. There may likely be a great challenge in producing enough food to sustain the future population of Nigeria if issues on land tenure and governance are not addressed. Even though our finding revealed that Nigerians cultivate more land at present than ever before with a percentage increase of 19.2 percent in 2000 to 2010, much needs to be done considering challenges confronting agricultural investors. Some of the identified challenges in Ogun State include: the activities of nomadic, high cost of land acquisition, land grabbing which has dispossessed members of the communities of their large parcels of land, scarcity of labor in rural community due to youth rural-urban drift and high cost of modern agricultural input preventing them to adopt. This is a dangerous trend for the future considering the current food deficit problem in Nigeria. Transparency in land governance with customary laws can improve land access. Removal of gender biases in access to land, bureaucracy and cost of securing and perfecting title, short-term lease which cannot be used as collateral for agricultural loans in the Land Use Act need to be amended

Medium-Scale Farming as a Policy Tool for Agricultural Commercialisation and Small-Scale Farms Transformation in Nigeria

Recent evidence suggests that the changing structure of land ownership in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the major new trends affecting African agri-food systems. Research in several African countries shows a rapid rise of medium-scale farms (MSFs) of 5–50ha. MSFs have become an important force for increasing agricultural production, particularly in countries with significant unutilised arable land and potential for area expansion, such as Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia. Most African countries’ national agricultural investment plans and policy strategies officially regard the smallholder farming sector as the main vehicle for achieving agricultural growth, food security, and poverty reduction objectives. However, many governments have adopted land and financial policies that implicitly encourage the rise of emergent MSFs. Given the documented rise in MSFs in many African countries, the APRA Nigeria Work Stream 1 team developed a research agenda focused on understanding the potentially complex ways in which these farms affect the productivity and commercialisation potential of small-scale farms (SSFs). We investigated the characteristics of MSFs, the processes that produces them, their relative importance in the agricultural commercialisation process, the relationship between farm scale and productivity, and whether MSFs influence the behaviour and welfare of the millions of SSF households around them. Our findings are based on two years of survey data on MSFs and nearby SSFs in 2019 and 2021 in Ogun and Kaduna states. This policy brief summarises our main findings, drawing upon several APRA-supported reports

Land Tenure, Governance and Accountability in Nigeria: The Implications on Food Production to Feed the Present and the Future

Land is very vital for agricultural production, and for any nation that wants to be self-food sufficient. Different land reforms have taken place in Nigeria since 1960 with the aim of facilitating access to agricultural land, and make the nation self-sufficient in food production, but little changes have only been recorded. Bureaucracy by approving authorities in practice in communities where land is situated still hinders land acquisition for agricultural investment. This study therefore analyzes land policy, governance and accountability and draw out some implications on food production in Nigeria. The percentage of arable land to the total land area was 37.3 percent by available data in 2013, which suggests that smaller area is only available for cultivation with little for agricultural expansion. There may likely be a great challenge in producing enough food to sustain the future population of Nigeria if issues on land tenure and governance are not addressed. Even though our finding revealed that Nigerians cultivate more land at present than ever before with a percentage increase of 19.2 percent in 2000 to 2010, much needs to be done considering challenges confronting agricultural investors. Some of the identified challenges in Ogun State include: the activities of nomadic, high cost of land acquisition, land grabbing which has dispossessed members of the communities of their large parcels of land, scarcity of labor in rural community due to youth rural-urban drift and high cost of modern agricultural input preventing them to adopt. This is a dangerous trend for the future considering the current food deficit problem in Nigeria. Transparency in land governance with customary laws can improve land access. Removal of gender biases in access to land, bureaucracy and cost of securing and perfecting title, short-term lease which cannot be used as collateral for agricultural loans in the Land Use Act need to be amended

APRA Working Paper 46

In recent times, the Nigerian Government has devised strategies aimed at intensifying smallholder transformation for enhanced food security, employment creation and poverty reduction. However, despite these efforts, the process of agricultural commercialisation in Nigeria has not progressed as fast as expected. Consequently, this study examines agricultural commercialisation in Nigeria with the aim of establishing factors that are constraining commercialisation and identifying potential policy levers that can be used to fast-track the process

Determinants of farmer’s decision to transit to medium/larger farm through expansion of land area under commercial tree crop plantation in Nigeria

Decision-making is central to farm management. This study assesses key factors influencing land allocation decisions of households with respects to tree crop cultivation in Nigeria. The study uses primary data collected electronically from a sample of 569 small and 495 medium-scale farmers in Ogun State.Tobit and Heckman regression models were estimated. The study finds that, farm households who have access to land markets and land tenure security, all-weather roads, agro-dealer services and better transportation services are more likely to cultivate tree crop fields and allocate a higher share of total farm holdings to tree crop enterprises. Farm households with more educated heads put larger area of land under commercial tree crop cultivation and those with larger off-farm income tend to cultivate less hectarage to tree crops. The share of farmland allocated to tree crops by male headed households is higher than the share by the female headed households. In addition, female and youth-headed households were found to be less likely to invest in commercial tree crop farming. Policies and intervention programs that would enhance access to land, agro-dealer services, all-weather roads, transportation services and security of land tenure could facilitate the redistribution of land in favour of commercial tree crops.</p