This proceedings issue from a mini conference held in November 2004 presents six papers summarising attempts to establish best practice equity-share schemes on two commercial farms in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The main object of this participatory research was to test and refine land reform policy influencing the role of equity-share schemes as instruments of land and agrarian reform in South Africa.The papers presented were as follows:Land redistribution in Kwazulu-Natal: an analysis of Farmland transactions from 1997 until 2002 by Stuart Ferrer and Allan Semalulu.

This collection of briefing papers summarises select papers presented at the workshop: "Land Rights for African Development: From Knowledge to Action" held in November 2005.

This paper describes and analyses people’s security of access to means of production among the Karimojong herd-owners who inhabit the North-Eastern districts of Uganda. It claims that Ugandan statutory land management policy and law undermines the customary tenure system, thereby threatening access security for Karimojong agro-pastoralists.

This paper is a synthesis of land issues and land policy constraints in Southern Africa prepared for the World Bank Regional Workshop on Land Issues in Africa and the Middle East held in Kampala, Uganda, in May 2002. It synthesizes key points made in commissioned papers, plenary comments, and facilitated discussions from a special Southern Africa Working Group attended by conference delegates.

The 1998 Land Act represents one of the most important pieces of legislation in Uganda, which is predominantly an agricultural country. The role of a consortium of NGOs, The Uganda Land Alliance (ULA), is analysed in this paper, with regard to the enactment of the Act. The issues addressed include:

Secure access to resources is now recognised in human rights discourse as a universal condition of human well-being. This paper aims to contribute to the theoretical and empirical understanding of land tenure as a human rights issue, by analysing recent land tenure policy in South Africa. Specifically, the paper analyses the implementation of the Transformation of Certain Rural Areas Act (Trancraa) in Namaqualand, Northern Cape Province during 2001 and 2002.

Report finds that land rights in Ethiopia are highly insecure, and higher tenure security and transferability could enhance investment and agricultural productivity. Trying to identify and implement measures to increase producers’ tenure security could have a large pay-off in terms of rural productivity and poverty reduction.The authors use a large data set from Ethiopia that differentiates tenure security and transferability to explore determinants of different types of land-related investment and its possible impact on productivity.

The agriculture sector faces the challenge of providing adequate food to a growing world population. There is limited scope to expand arable land, and unpredictable weather, floods, and other disastrous events make food production even more challenging. This guidebook provides information on 22 technologies and options for adapting to climate change in the agriculture sector.

This paper seeks to map out the historical trajectory leading to a series of migrations in and from the erstwhile princely state of Travancore during 1900-70 in order to acquire and bring land under cultivation. It argues that these migrations undertaken with a moralistic and paternal mission of reclaiming ‘empty’ spaces into productive locations were a result of a specific form of economic modernity in Kerala as beckoned by colonialism and appropriated by a resolute local agency through a process of translation.

The policy debate about the merits and demerits of biofuels is growing and changing rapidly, with concerns being voiced over their effectiveness for mitigating climate change, role in recent food price hikes and social environmental impacts. This study contributes to these debates through examining the current and likely future impacts of the increasing spread of biofuels on access to land in producer countries, particularly for poorer rural people. It draws on a literature review of evidence drawn from diverse contexts across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Large areas of the humid tropics are like mosaics, combining features of forests and agriculture and housing hundreds of millions of people. Land uses that store high quantities of carbon, such as agroforestry and other tree-based systems, make up a large part of those mosaic areas. Yet current discussions on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) within the UNFCCC do not adequately address these land uses as part of a potential mitigation strategy.

This paper explores and evaluates the impact of a new form of large-scale agriculture which is becoming an increasing phenomenon in southern Burkina Faso. With severe ecological deterioration and food deficits, small-scale agriculture is usually seen as the key to economic prosperity, social solidarity and sustainable management of local resources. However, a set of new stakeholders, comprising politicians, entrepreneurs and employees, is promoting large-scale agribusiness as a relevant and viable alternative for agricultural development in the country.