Securing Land Rights for Smallholder Farms
Farmers, cooperatives, and agribusinesses can leverage Cadasta’s technology and training to quickly document and manage data on plot size and land use, land claims and governance structures, supply chain traceability and transparency, water access points, and other features.
Clarifying and strengthening rights to agricultural land is critical to livelihoods around the world. Land tenure underpins resilient food systems, supply chain transparency, women’s empowerment, and sustainable resource management. There are an estimated 570 million farms worldwide, the majority of which are smallholder and family farms lacking secure land rights.
In Farms, with Cadasta’s Technology, Tools, and Services
COMMUNITY AND ORGANIZATIONS can document land claims, crops, land use, and access to natural resources, as well as advocate for strengthened women’s and smallholder farmer land rights.
PRIVATE SECTOR COMPANIES can document and manage data on crops and production, producers, and prior land claims for supply chain traceability and sustainability.
LOCAL AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS can overcome the constraints and challenges imposed by traditional land administration systems to more efficiently document, analyze, and manage rural and agricultural property data.
Cadasta’s Work in Farms
In the Kigoma region of Tanzania, more than 30,000 families produce palm oil on smallholder farms. To protect farmers’ rights and their environment, Seed Change partnered with Cadasta to create a transparent palm oil supply chain. Cadasta helped Seed Change develop a tailor-made digital questionnaire that documented the farmers’ land rights and created an evidence base for their land use and sustainable farming practices. To date, data from nearly 500 households has been collected with GPS-enabled smartphones to assist farmers in becoming certified as sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
In the town of Luberizi, in the South Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cadasta worked with ZOA International, the local and provincial governments, and customary authorities to map and document land rights and irrigation infrastructure across 6,000 parcels, using participatory mapping techniques. The project seeks to revive an existing irrigation scheme in an area that has suffered repeated violence in recent years. The project resulted in a database called “cartographie pour la réflexion” (mapping for thinking) to help the different stakeholders analyze current land occupancy patterns, resolve land conflicts, document tenure rights, and ensure equitable and sustainable access to the irrigation scheme.
In the province of South Sumatra in Indonesia, Cadasta is working with Daemeter to establish supply chain transparency with local communities and palm oil plantation owners. Daemeter is utilizing Cadasta’s platform and tools to develop a multi-step methodology to understand the palm oil supply chain between plantations, cooperatives, communities, and privately-held companies. Using community-driven, participatory practices, Daemeter’s goal is to develop a market-based approach to palm oil that incorporates all stakeholders and empowers local communities.
