Land in Madagascar is usually obtained through inheritance, gift, or clearing fallow land. Ownership of agricultural land is a significant determinant of welfare. 77 percent of the rural population is below the national poverty line, and those without land are the poorest. Only about 7% of agricultural land is registered.
The majority of landholders in Madagascar assert rights to land under customary law. Land is perceived as the land of the ancestors (tanindrazana). Although land may become individualized, many believe that it must be titled or recorded in some fashion before an individual can claim perpetual ownership rights to the plot. However, many villagers do not see the necessity of formal registration.
Madagascar established a Torrens land registration system during the colonial period. Registration under the system proceeded slowly and inefficiently. Records of land once formally registered have fallen out of date because of the high costs of the formal registration process. Registration requires an average of 74 days to navigate seven different procedures, with 24 steps involved. The organisations tasked with administering the system, Services Fonciers Topographie and Domaine lack sufficient funds. Local land registry offices have been established to allow people to legalise private property rights through the issue of individual or collective land certificates. So far, only one fifth of local governments have a land registry office.
The cost of obtaining a land certificate is approximately 9.7% of the property value. The average cost MGA 60,000 ($USD350), which is more than the annual wage of many farmers. If parents die, applicants must start process again. It is costly and lengthy to determine who owns a parcel of land and all inheritors must be identified. Once a land certificate has been issued, the recipient(s) must pay taxes, which many people cannot afford. Further complicating the issue is that often people who do not have a legitimate claim to the land are the first to come forward with a claim.
Malagasy NGO Ny Tanintsika works with communities on local projects to reduce poverty and improve conservation. One of their projects works with the poorest and most marginalised people assisting them to grow food crops using sustainable methods. Beneficiaries have mostly borrowed land from family, neighbours or acquaintances, and continued access to land is insecure. Beneficiaries run the risk of other people claiming ownership of land and crops produced.
Ny Tanintsika is working to secure formal land tenure for these households, though it is proving a complex and arduous process. They are in the beginning stages of assisting communities to set up local land offices to help smallholders receive land tenure certification or title deeds (part of the Malagasy government’s National Land Tenure Reform Programme). Once a land office is set up in a commune, the community is tasked with managing the office and setting fee charges for the service. Ny Tanintsika is currently applying for funding to establish the first land office in one of the communes that they work, Ankarimbelo in the central highlands. If successful, they will expand this to other communes in their sphere of influence. If you would like to donate to this worthy cause, please visit https://www.justgiving.com/feedbacktrust/donate/
