Title: Land Tenure Security on Tanzanian Agricultural performance – A Case of Banana Based Farming System in Bukoba

Author: Amos Mwijage

 Faculty of Science and Technology, Teofilo Kisanji University, P.O. Box 1104, Mbeya, United Republic of Tanzania.

Correspondence: amwijage@yahoo.com

Abstract

This paper reviews scholarly literature on impacts of accessibility to communal land and tenure security to productivity of the farming system. The article focused on the structure of the farming system in which land use units are interrelated to each other for agricultural performance of the entire system. We observe that land registration and institutional imposed policy measures for land uses may lead to uneven distribution of benefits to farmers if the historical perspective of a farming system in question is ignored. The article argues that any land tenure reform is unlikely to succeed if it is founded on inadequate information or based upon inaccurate assumptions about actual rural, agricultural, and tenure conditions for a particular farming system. Before any policy formulation, adequate research is necessary, and research should be maintained at the implementation and evaluation stages to permit proper monitoring of outcome including important role of particular local traditions for sustainable development. Finally the paper suggests that more research on tenure security and farm productivity while putting into consideration of local tenure arrangements is needed.

Keywords: Land tenure security; Farming system; Agricultural productivity