Combinations of ways to access land

Because land is economically, culturally and socially valuable, accessing it is a challenge. Older generations might still hold parcels that they appropriated through the rights of occupancy. Older interviewees explained that when arriving to the village, they asked approval from the village elders or the chief of fokontany whose recognition was necessary to be socially accepted and directed towards available pieces of land. When the agricultural presence became more intense and settled, the use and appropriation of land started to be socially controlled. Newcomers had to negotiate access with people in place. According to Raison (1984), in such contexts good interpersonal skills were useful for social negotiations as well as knowledge of local settings and administrative support.

Today, the settlements are established, and most of the land is appropriated and used by individuals or households who have acquired their parcels through various means, such as donation, heritage, purchase or renting. Land is also accumulated little by little and used as leverage to respond to each life situation.

That is how we accessed to the land: when we were young, when we were still with our parents, we had some money and we did not spend it, but we bought land. We fed our children with the land we had bought before our wedding. We bought little by little, since we have many children we did not allow ourselves to have a big life.

We thought about our children and to share land with them.

Interview with a farmer (PEA008), 03.06.2016

The first step, we were 7 and our parents' land was not enough for us. I was grown up and my brothers and sisters were still small. They gave me a part to cultivate when I got married. I farmed there and […] raised animals. Then there was land for sale and I was able to buy. I sold everything to buy the land. Later my parents were in trouble because my father had fallen ill, and I gave them the plot they gave me when I got married.

Interview with a farmer (PEA004), 01.06.2016

Table 4.8. combines two statistics on access to land: one specific for the zone of Ankazomiriotra and another on nine municipalities of Madagascar. It demonstrates that access through rights occupancy has become rare, especially around Ankazomiriotra.

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Inheritance and purchase are the most common ways of accessing land in a permanent manner.

Table 4.8. Modes of access to land

Four municipalities in the

Sources: Burnod, Andrianirina et al. (2014); Razafimahatratra et al. (2017)

4.3.5.1. Inheritance

The traditional pattern of inheritance is patrilineal where daughters obtain less land than sons or none at all. The farmers in Ankazomiriotra explain this as a way to ensure that the ancestral lands are not alienated from the family when daughters move to live with their spouses. In other words, it is a way of controlling the appropriation of land.

However, when daughters lose the connection with the ancestral lands, they are not expected to carry out responsibilities towards the family such as (financially) contributing to family festivities, which is a duty of the heirs and can represent significant costs. Sometimes daughters receive small tracts of land from their parents. In these cases, their responsibilities towards the family are reduced or nil. Nevertheless, a number of farmers also acknowledged giving the same amount to daughters and sons.

When a woman disposes of land, she does so independently from her partner i.e. she can transmit it to her children, give it to family members or sell it (Omrane 2008).

Farmers also told me of donating land in usufruct to their children when they get married.

These parcels might not, however, be held permanently by the children, but can be reallocated between family members either when other siblings get married or the parents die. In general, farmers found it crucial to be able to leave land to their children:

117 Especially for Malagasy, children must inherit from parents and it is shameful for parents not to be able to leave any inheritance for their children.

Farmer in a focus group discussion, 02.06.2016 In the tradition of the Merina ethnic group, it is frowned upon to give ancestral land to a person outside of the lineage (Sandron 2007). One farmer expressed this through a proverb:

Heritage should not change hands.

Interview with a farmer (PEA024), 10.06.2016 Yet, many farmers were concerned whether they have enough land for their children to inherit. This is a real worry considering the size of the households (5.7 people on average according to Razafimahatratra et al. 2017), which leads to a decrease in the amount of land passed to future generations and the general fragmentation of land-holdings. The market remains an option to access land and to complete existing holdings. However, here again, the high prices mean that land is available only for the wealthiest, escalating inequalities between households.

4.3.5.2. Markets

Regardless of the strong ancestral value of land, a purchase and rental market exists in Ankazomiriotra. Yet, farmers told of prioritising the selling or renting of parcels to family members, followed by selling land to friends and trustworthy people with whom they did not have any tension or jealousy. If nobody among the extended family and circle of friends was interested in the land, it could be offered to a wider community of buyers and advertised in the fokontany or municipality. In the words of the farmers, the land market is based on social relations, negotiations and confidence. This means that farmers might not sell parcels, for instance, to neighbours they are jealous of, to avoid the accumulation of land by them.

While all lands are valuable, farmers told of allocating most significance to lands that have already been passed on in the family and gained ancestral value. One would separate from them at the last recourse, meaning that land acquired by purchase would be sold first. As a common feature of lineage systems, farmers explained that when a parcel with an ancestral linkage is sold, a benediction from the ancestors or other family members should be sought. The farmers remark that such approval is often given when the reasons are about survival, livelihoods and better living conditions. In their words,

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ancestors and family members are understanding but only for serious reasons. They considered other, profit-driven behaviour to be disrespectful towards the ancestors. The person separating from the ancestral land could also endure social and cultural loss by being left outside family traditions. This shows again that the possession of ancestral land ensures belonging to a group and a place (see Omrane 2008; Evers 2013).

Considering cultural and social value, land is mainly sold as a last recourse after having separated from all mobile properties. Farmers told that transactions take place before the new harvest or before festivities such as exhumation (retournement des morts) when the need for money is the greatest. There is a paradox here as farmers might need to sell their ancestral land to be able to participate in the exhumation festivities to celebrate these same ancestors. Other farmers might also rent part of their holdings and start to work in parallel as agricultural employees to receive a regular salary and a single payment for the land to cover costs, rather than being obliged to rely on the harvest alone as a source of revenue. At some point, they might even sell land to the new occupiers and work for them. Finally, in some cases wealthier farmers might rent land out if they are not able to cultivate it and do not wish to employ workers.

While most transactions are definitive, farmers confirmed that a practice of temporal or partial selling of land exists. It includes a clause that in the case of a resell of the parcels these would be offered to the initial owner first at the same price. When parcels are sold to family members, the sellers might wish to continue to use some parts. Sandron (2007) observes that when land is sold between family members, the seller might hope to take it back at later stage.

In the rental market, the owner’s need defines the period for which parcels are made available, mostly from one to three years. The tenant is supposed to pay the whole rent in advance and they are not reimbursed for any works or investments made on the parcels. This diminishes the tenants’ ability to engage in longer-term contracts and limits access to tenants with initial capital. The tenants might also avoid long-term contracts so as not to rent parcels when they are fallow in their rotational cycle.

This overview of Ankazomiriotra sheds light on a rural agrarian society where poverty is deep, outside integration weak and land (together with zebus) a marker of wealth,

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social status and belonging. Land is accessed and governed through family and community relations, and few people have legal documents such as certificates and titles.

This background indicates that tenure security is more of a question of authority, social and cultural relations inside households, families and communities rather than a legal and administrative matter requiring registration. Also, the key development challenges are related to agricultural production in general, the low market value of produce, population growth and insecurity. While land is economically, socially and culturally valuable, land tenure was not the main preoccupation of interviewed farmers. This overview is important as it enables us to contextualise the land policy in a rural setting.

It equally helps explaining some understandings farmers have of tenure security (and tenure problems) and how they view the policy implementation. I analyse these aspects in Chapter 7.

4.4. Conclusion

In this chapter, I provided an overview of national and local contexts which the Malagasy land policy falls into. Several points are worth highlighting. First, the national policy and development setting are characterised by political instability and economic challenges that have also impacted the implementation of the land policy. Second, parallel development, environmental conservation endeavours and agricultural investments raise questions about the ability of the land policy to secure the tenure rights of small-scale farmers. Third, decentralisation has been a policy approach since the 1990s, but in terms of land administration it is questioned by the state land service, whose authority over land was reduced. This creates friction in policy implementation.

Fourth, economic, social and cultural meanings of land as well as customary ways of governing land reign in a case study rural community questioning the legal and administrative basis of the policy. Finally, the policy has been elaborated and implemented with external actors – donors, experts, NGOs – that have influenced its course. These are points to be reflected in the next empirical chapters (5 to 8).

In this chapter, I have also underlined elements that frame the research. Therefore, I examine Malagasy land policy in relation to its core elements of recognition of local

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appropriations and uses of land, and decentralisation of land administration. I attend to other dimensions (e.g. modernisation of land administration) only when relevant. I analyse the policy from its endorsement in 2005 until 2016 when the new PNF was enacted. I recognise, however, the antecedents to the policy. I bring a global dimension to the discussion when it is directly related to Madagascar e.g. through the intervention of donors and other international actors. Finally, the local investigation focuses on Ankazomiriotra as a site where tenure (in)securities are made real and policies implemented.

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