Abstract

Discussions on land tenure change in Africa often lack an appreciation of farming systems and their structure. This disconnection is remarkable because tenure change is often seen as means to enhance the productivity of African agriculture. In this article, we examine the structure of the agro-ecological system and its productivity in relation to land tenure arrangements in the banana-based farming system in northwest Tanzania. We analysed the evolving land tenure arrangements and changes in agricultural productivity. We found that customary tenure and land use practices have been destabilized by tenure reforms including those programmes facilitating individual control of previously communal lands. Like elsewhere in Africa, tenure reforms have increased the competition for land, although low productivity land is being targeted in Bukoba. By ignoring the morphology of the dominant farming system, the reforms are not likely to result in an increase in agricultural productivity. This paper challenges the communal-private ownership opposition that continues to dominate the debate on land tenure reforms in Africa. It proposes a perspective on tenure reform that takes account of the farming system and the specific tenure arrangements for different land use practices that it comprises.

Key words: Tenure arrangement, land use change, system productivity, privatization.