Women own less than 20 percent of land in the world
Half of the world’s smallholder farmers are women
70 percent of Africa’s food is produced by women smallholder farmers
Over the past nine years, the project on Supporting Implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) has helped countries make political commitments towards the eradication of hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition, with the explicit outcome of increasing awareness among decision makers, development partners, and society at large regarding access to natural resources. The Food a
Our food system doesn’t work for everyone.
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There are 278 smallholder farmers in Selama Kebele in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of western Ethiopia. On average, these farmers own 2 - 10 hectares of land. Smallholder farmer Abdulahi Mohammod, age 48, is one of them. To provide for his thirteen children and two wives, he cultivates 6 hectares of crops which include corn, sorghum, soybean and red peppers. With the earnings derived from his land he is able to meet his family’s basic needs, which includes paying school fees for seven of his children.
Our food systems are in urgent need of transformation, as humanity faces one of our biggest challenges yet; feeding a future population of 10 billion people with safe and nutritious food while keeping a healthy planet. Our food system has the power to tip the scales and transform the future of our planet and humankind.
In the second PhD session of the LANDac Conference 2021, three PhD researchers presented their work in progress. We learned about slums in Abuja, Nigeria, about forest rights in India, and about the relation between inequalities in soil fertility, gender, and access to subsidies. Each presentation was discussed by an expert from the LANDac network.
Key Takeaways
The Côte d’Ivoire Land Partnership (CLAP) brings public and private sectors together to work for affordable land documentation for smallholder farmers at scale. The panellists explained that land security should be at the core of corporate sustainability agendas because it translates into benefits across supply chains. Providing smallholder farmers with land documentation to strengthen their land rights has an impact on their lives, their families and also their productivity.
PhD research provides key inputs to strengthen our knowledge base on land access, land governance and challenges related to development, crisis and resilience. This is why LANDac reserves a special place in the programme to discuss their contributions.
From Europe to the U.S., migration issues are highly politicized, divisive, and complex. When U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Central America a few weeks ago to better understand the root causes of migration, she recognized the driving force of poverty that leads people to leave their homes.
A really important report from the International Land Coalition and Oxfam is just out called ‘Uneven Ground: Land Inequality at the Heart of Unequal Societies’, along with 17 supporting papers. Through new analysis it shows that land inequality is even larger than previously thought, and that this has dramatic effects on poor people’s livelihoods, particularly those of women and young people.
The debate about compensation of former white farmers in Zimbabwe continues to rage. The compensation agreement signed in July agreed a total amount of US$3.5 billion to pay for ‘improvements’ to the land that was expropriated. After 20 years of discussion, this was a major step forward. However, there seem to be multiple positions on the agreement and little consensus, along with much misunderstanding. However, some things are happening, and a joint resource mobilisation committee has been established with technical support from the World Bank and others.
