95
The average area of the small farm sector (0-199 hectares) was 43,890 hectares for 1976-78
but rose to 65,326 hectares in 1988-90—an increase of 49 percent. Much of this increase was from
smaller farms (0-79 hectares) which had risen from an average of 20,231 hectares in 1976-78 to
33,942 in 1985-87, a dramatic increase of 67 percent. The increase over the corresponding period for
farms in the 80-199 range is 55 percent. The only major fluctuation was 1985 when both farm sizes
shrunk to nearly half the area they had in 1983. In contrast, the area controlled by farms with 2,000
hectares or more was very stochastic as shown in figure 3.4. Overall, the largest farms shrunk in area
from 1,381,623 hectares in 1976-78 to 1,016,766 hectares in 1988-90, a decline of 26 percent.
V. Private transfers
The land market is the mechanism by which farming units change in number and size. Data
on official transfers, i.e., transactions in leasehold properties and other legal transfers under the
oversight of the MOL, are quite limited in scope and duration. The information that is available is
reviewed below in section VI. The data on private transfers analyzed in this section have been taken
from the commercial farm series collection for the period 1976-1990, formally known as the Annual
Census of Agricultural and Pastoral Production. 5 There is no indication how many of the transfers
reported in the commercial farm surveys have also been registered with the MOL. Accordingly, no
attempt will be made to formally reconcile the two sets of data.
The 1988-90 three-year averages indicate a relatively low level of land market transfers for
the region (table 3.9). With regard to annual figures for Zambia as a whole, roughly 9,198.6 hectares
(0.7 percent of the total land area) were purchased and 29,264.0 hectares (2.1 percent) were rented-in
or leased-in, 6 compared with purchases of around 4.0 percent per annum in the Republic of South
Africa (Roth et al. 1993). There is, however, a discrepancy between the amount purchased and the
amount sold and similarly between the amount leased-in and the amount leased-out. Normally one
would expect the land-in and land-out figures to be roughly equal. As leases not fully utilized can be
reassigned or claimed by outsiders, there is some incentive to underreport rental data. Also absentee
landlords would not usually lease-out land, particularly to outsiders. Further, they would be the most
difficult group to locate should underreporting be a serious problem in survey design. Unfortunately,
it is impossible to ascertain the determining factors from the data provided.
Most of the land market activity is occurring in Southern province with 60.9 percent of the
purchases nationwide and 40.9 percent of the leases. Copperbelt comprises 22.3 percent of the
purchases but only 4.4 percent of the leases which may be accounted for by the presence of many
small farms in this region, although Lusaka province (also with many small farms) has figures of 8.8
percent and 26.7 percent, respectively. Central province has 8.1 percent of the purchases and 28.0
percent of the leases.
6 Only area figures are reported. There is no information on the number of transfers.
6 Hereafter "lease" shall stand for lease or rental transactions. The data for most years does not distinguish between the
two, so this report shall avoid doing so as well.