Effects of indigenous land tenure titling on agricultural investment among smallholder farmers in Mbozi District, Tanzania

MSc. Dissertation

This study was conducted to assess the effect of land titling on tenure security and subsequent investment on land improvement among smallholder farmers in Mbozi District, Tanzania. Specific objectives were; to determine the proportion of farmers who have formal land titles as well as the proportion of formalized land in Mbozi District, to identify how land tenure security is defined according to local criteria among farmers and determine indicators that express tenure security by land owners in the study area, to compare the level of investment on land improvement that is undertaken by farmers under each land tenure system; and to determine factors that influence smallholder farmers investment decisions under each land tenure systems. Secondary and primary data were collected from the district. The sample size of 140 respondents in which 53.6% out of the total sampled population had land titles and the remaining 46.4% had no land titles. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression model were used in the study. The study results reveal that out of interviewed respondents who had titles, 91.12% had Customary Certificate Right of Occupancies (CCROs) and 8.88% had Granted Right Occupancies (GROs). However, only 5.98% of the land was under formalized ownership. The Mean land improving investment level on titled farms was with a mean difference of 250 809 Tanzanian shillings. Factors which influence investment included farm size, distance of form from the road, respondent political status, titled plot (tenure security) and were significant at α<0.01, access to credits was significant at (α< 0.05) while household size and sex were significant at (α< 0.1). The study general recommends that Government and Development partners should allocate more resources on land formalization to stimulate more land improving investment, since small holder farmers holding titled land invests more on formalized land as a result of improved tenure security.