Land tenure is the set of legal or customary rules governing how agricultural land is held, used and transferred, whether by outright ownership, leasehold, customary communal right, sharecropping or another arrangement, and it determines who has the security and incentive to invest in that land's long-term productivity. Insecure or contested land tenure, common where written title is absent or state and customary systems conflict, is widely identified as a barrier to farm investment and a driver of rural poverty.
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Associated With
Dawes Act, Milestones The Dawes Act of 1887 converted communally held tribal land into individually allotted parcels, changing the land tenure system on Native American reservations.
China's household responsibility system replaced collective farming with individual household contracts over land use rights, a change in land tenure rather than ownership.
The Meiji land tax reform of 1873 established private land ownership title and a land value tax basis in Japan, replacing feudal land tenure.
South Africa's Natives Land Act of 1913 restricted where the black population could own or occupy land, a racially structured land tenure restriction.
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