Understanding the nexus between land ownership structure, sustainable land management practices, and food security in Nigeria

This paper assesses how varying land tenure systems associated with farming households influence their Sustainable Land Management (SLM) decisions and choices, and the impact of these choices on household food security. Based on the 2018 World Bank Fadama III Additional financing data collected from 1800 households across six northeastern states in Nigeria, the study used the Multinomial logit model to test the effects of land ownership structure on the adoption of various SLM, while controlling for other factors. Our empirical findings show that the various land ownership structure plays different roles in the adoption of varying SLM. Land ownership by inheritance and rented land have the greatest influence on SLM, as they both increase the likelihood of adopting all four categories of SLM assessed. Also, our estimates show that borrowed lands do not significantly influence the adoption of SLM which requires long-term and huge investments such as Structural and Mechanical Erosion Control Practices (SMECP) and Soil Management Practices (SMP.) Similarly, we observed that common or community land is detrimental to the adoption of long-term land investment practices such as SMECP, and SMP. Furthermore, after controlling for endogeneity, the impact estimate obtained from the endogenous treatment effect model showed that the adoption of SLMP improves the food security of farming households. These findings underscore the need to promote the adoption of SLM, by ensuring secured and long-term households land ownership, as it portends the capability to improve household food security in Nigeria, and more importantly across the SSA.