Investigating the effectiveness of land use consolidation– a component of the crop intensification programme in Rwanda
Introduction
Land use consolidation has been viewed as profitable land management option in terms of profitable farming, land use, agriculture productivity, and increased food security as compared to fragmented land use (Munnangi et al., 2020; Asiama et al., 2017). It has been used in many parts of Europe, Latin America, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa as part of options to addressing the diseconomies derived from fragmented land use and improve rural infrastructure (Muhinda and Dusengemungu, 2013; Asiama et al., 2017; Crecente et al., 2002; Munnangi et al., 2020). In Rwanda, land use consolidation (LUC) was introduced in 2008 along with the national land planning policy to free land for agricultural and non-agricultural investment and prohibition of any subdivision that would result in parcels below 1 ha (Bizoza and Havugimana, 2013; Ali and Deininger, 2014; Del Prete et al., 2019). Since then it remains central to the on-going agricultural intensification to support the country's agriculture sector transformation strategy (PSTA-4). LUC is implemented as one of the four programme components of the large -scale Crop Intensification Programme (CIP) introduced in September 2007 (Kathiresan, 2011; Del Prete et al., 2019): distribution of improved inputs, coordinated provision of extension services, support to post-harvest handling and storage facilities. CIP initially focused on six crops, namely maize, beans, cassava, rice, wheat, and Irish potato. Later, banana, soya bean and vegetables were included (Muhinda and Dusengemungu, 2013).
Over time, land fragmentation has been regarded in the national land and agriculture policies as negative but with little account of its positive effects (Konguka, 2013; Munt and Ikirezi, 2015; Ntihinyuzwa et al., 2019). As part of response, land use consolidation was launched with the Organic Law no August 2005 of July 14, 2005; later repealed by the Organic Law No 03/2013/OL of June 16, 2013 governing lands in Rwanda, in its article 30. This new Organic Law has defined land use consolidation as “a procedure of putting together small plots of land in order to manage the land and use it in an efficient and uniform manner so that its productivity is increased”. Since its introduction, LUC has stimulated a growing research on its adoption and expected benefits by farmers (Bizoza and Havugimana, 2013), effectiveness and impact (e.g. Kathiresan, 2011; Musahara et al., 2014; Habyarimana and Nkunzimana, 2017; Ndushabandi et al., 2018; Del Prete et al., 2019), comparison of its benefits against those drawn from fragmented land use management (e.g. Huggins, 2013; Ansoms et al., 2010; Ntinyuza et al., 2019; Chigbu et al., 2019; Del Prete et al., 2019). Furthermore, the tenure security of the ownership of plots under fragmented land use or under land use consolidation is scarcely discussed.
The available evidence from identified research case-studies has posited so far, a mixed perspective about the effectiveness and impacts of land use consolidation programme. For example, despite evidence of positive impacts of the land use consolidation from earlier studies by Musahara et al. (2014) and Ndushabandi et al. (2018), a recent study by Ntihinyuzwa et al. (2019) indicates that fragmented land use persists in Rwanda. Land users still perceive land fragmentation to be an effective land use to ensure risk management, food and nutrition security strategy positive effects on food quality, crop diversification, and more climate change resilience (Konguka, 2013; Del Prete et al., 2019). Besides, other studies suggest that more efficient farming and agriculture productivity is likely to be observed among smallholder farmers than the larger ones (Byiringiro and Reardon, 1996; Ali and Deininger, 2014; Clay et al., 2018). However, while these studies postulate some positive features of fragmented land use, but they at the same time recognize its negative effects in terms of agricultural production efficiency, loss of land through boundaries, boundaries induced conflicts; and hence considering these being part of feature of less developed agricultural systems (Blarel et al., 1992). Land use consolidation is for some selected crops and in some areas only while land fragmentation is a national feature, hence land use consolidation has not been as the norm of growing all crops everywhere.
Therefore, irrespective of the different perspectives from the existing literature on the effectiveness and impact of land use consolidation in Rwanda, to the author's knowledge, there are only two case-studies (Musahara et al., 2014; Ndushabandi et al., 2018) that have specifically endeavoured to assess the impact of land use consolidation at national level but also with some gaps in the methodological approaches and data needed. Other studies have limitations in their methodology design such as smaller study population, geographical location (administrative sector (s) or district (s), and consideration of one or fewer outcome variables; making difficult to establish a substantial evidence of the effectiveness and impact of land use consolidation in Rwanda (Lawry et al., 2017). These limitations raise important policy and research concerns about the economic, food and nutrition security and environmental and climate change resilience impacts of land use consolidation. Therefore, the aim of this present article is to merge all the different findings investigating the effectiveness of LUC and use the available evidence through a systematic review and furnish common findings, deficiencies, and major issues affecting the effectiveness and impact of land use consolidation, with focus to economic, food and nutrition security, and environmental and climate change resilience outcomes. The paper will further identify the research gaps based on the analysis of evidence base gathered in selected case-n studies as well as the approach and methodologies used to inform on future research consideration. Hence, findings of this paper generate a comprehensive knowledge of the drivers and new avenues to inform an effective implementation of the on-going land use consolidation and other connected programmes in the overall context of agricultural transformation in Rwanda. They will also contribute to the on-going debate about the effectiveness and impacts of land and agriculture related policies in Rwanda and elsewhere in the World (Lawry et al., 2014; Higgins et al., 2018; Munnangi et al., 2020).
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the materials and methodology used for this review, Section 3 presents theory that situates land use consolidation in the global SDGs and the national strategy for transformation. Maps the existing evidence on the effectiveness and impacts through a systematic review, Section 4 gives a synthesis of major findings on the existing evidence on the effectiveness and impact of the land use consolidation and identifies research gaps for future research and policy actions which later are discussed in Section 5 before the conclusions in Section 6.
Section snippets
The logic of analysis
The analytical framework employed in this study goes mainly through the content analysis of the identified research materials providing descriptive or/and empirical assessment of LU's effectiveness and impact in Rwanda for the period 2010–2020. Content analysis provides an in-depth description of a particular condition or process (Munnangi et al., 2020; Tsinda et al., 2016). For this particular analysis, the units of observation are the design of the conceptual framework opted by selected
Theory: LUC in the global (SDGs) and national strategy for transformation (NST-1)
From the global commitments of Rwanda, the LUC sub-program is expected to contribute directly to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) one and two. In 2016 Rwanda initiated the process of integration of SDGs in its national planning. A preliminary assessment indicated that about thirteen out of sixteen sub-indicators for these two particular SDGs were already considered in the national planning from the corresponding sectors including agriculture, social protection, environment and natural
Mapping of LUC's trends in intermediary outcomes
This sub-section portrays the trends in LUC's intermediary outcomes, namely area under land use consolidation, access and use of modern inputs (mineral fertilizers and improved seeds), access to extension services, and changes in crop yields for crops selected under the entire CIP programme and the overall national policy context (see Fig. 1).
Discussion
From the analytical and conceptual framework, all case-studies identified in this paper can be grouped in four categories, excluding one case-study (Asiama et al., 2017) drawing lessons from Rwanda to inform Ghana's land use consolidation and the PSTA-4 being a strategic document (MINAGRI, 2017) (see Table 6). Out of twenty-eight case-studies, eleven focused their analysis solely on LUC alone as a policy or a programme component (see Cat. C), six on the entire CIP having LUC as a component, six
Conclusion
The aim of this paper is to unite all the different findings and use the available evidence base to investigate the effectiveness and the validity of economic, food and nutrition, and environmental impacts of land use consolidation. Informed by a systematic review of twenty-eight n-case studies that have applied mixed research methods (Q2), to the author's knowledge this paper is the first of its kind in Rwanda, has synthesised the available evidence on effectiveness and impacts of land use
Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge the support in data collection received from Patrick Byishimo and Odette Mutangiza. The author acknowledges also insights and information gained from anonymous key informants during the consultations made during this study.
References (61)
- et al.
Land consolidation on Ghana's rural customary lands: drawing from the Dutch, Lithuanian and Rwandan experiences
J. Rural Stud.
(2017) - et al.
Farm productivity in Rwanda: effects of farm size, erosion, and soil conservation investments
Agric. Econ.
(1996) - et al.
Farmer incentives and value chain governance: critical elements to sustainable growth in Rwanda's coffee sector
J. Rural Stud.
(2018) - et al.
Smallholders' uneven capacities to adapt to climate change amid Africa's ‘green revolution’: case study of Rwanda's crop intensification program
World Dev.
(2019) - et al.
Economic, social and environmental impact of land consolidation in Galicia
Land Use Pol.
(2002) - et al.
Green revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa: implications of imposed innovation for the wellbeing of rural smallholders
World Dev.
(2016) - et al.
Land consolidation, specialization and household diets: evidence from Rwanda
Food Pol.
(2019) - et al.
Investigating the impacts of increased rural land tenure security: a systematic review of the evidence
J. Rural Stud.
(2018) - et al.
Policy mixes for sustainability transitions: new approaches and insights through bridging innovation and policy studies
Res. Pol.
(2019) - et al.
A review of land consolidation in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India: qualitative approach
Land Use Pol.
(2020)