Tenure Insecurity, Climate Variability and Renting out Decisions among Female Small-Holder Farmers in Ethiopia

Wisdom Akpalu,Mintewab Bezabih

doi:10.3390/su7067926

Abstract

Land tenure arrangements in Africa are generally skewed in favour of males. Compared to males, female plot owners face complex sets of constraints and systemic high tenure insecurity which culminate in low yields. In order to obtain better returns, some females rent their plots to males, but risk losing the plots to their tenants. A model has been constructed to explain renting-out decisions of female small landholders, an issue largely ignored in the agricultural economics literature. The results, based on a survey of female landholders in Ethiopia, highlight the factors that explain renting-out decisions.

Highlights

Small-holder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa use rudimentary farming techniques and largely depend on rainfall
We investigate the effect of a change in climate variability, the risk of losing the plot and the probability of retaining the plot if the female landholder fights, the marginal cost of fighting to retain the plot, and risk preference (i.e., 2, and ) on the renting out decision
From Equation (11), all else being equal, female landholders who have higher discount rates are more likely to rent out their plots

Summary

Introduction

Small-holder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa use rudimentary farming techniques and largely depend on rainfall. In a study of the impact of tenure insecurity on land productivity in Eritrea, Tikabo and Holden [1] found that plots owned by female-headed households have lower. Begemder and Semien, Eritrea, and parts of Wello and Shewa provinces [24], the prevalent system in the southern half of the country was the gult system, which was a private land tenure system. It was characterized by absentee owners, as it was the royal kinsmen or kinswomen who had the gult holdings [25]. Women’s land rights could be considered inferior to those of men, as independent land ownership by women was rarely recognized, except access to land through marriage or inheritance [16]

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Results

Conclusion