Chapter 4 deals with issues related to the emergence of a land market in urban and agricultural
properties in Zambia. Technical and financial problems confronting private investors and the real
estate industry are reviewed for private transfers. The chapter also reviews alternative methods for
administering government land policy in undeveloped areas, including options for land development,
land distribution via allocation or auction, land price determination, valuation of leasehold rents, and
property taxation. It further reviews the existing and potential institutional arrangements for setting,
collecting, and disbursing proceeds from land sales and rental fees. Finally, it evaluates the financial,
legal, and management issues associated with the establishment and operation of a land development
fund (LDF) proposed by the MOL to assist with financing land development.
Chapter 5 is a synthesis of a land tenure study recently completed by the International Centre
for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) in collaboration with the Land Tenure Center (LTC) and the
University of Zambia. That study, involving a survey of 200 agricultural producing households in
Eastern and Southern provinces, is one of the few studies in recent years that details customary land
tenure arrangements. Although the study focused on linkages between tenure and on-farm tree
planting, the formal questionnaire included general indicators of agricultural productivity and
development as well. The chapter briefly discusses the research methodology used, followed by
empirical findings on land acquisition, land rights, and land conflicts. Empirical results are also
presented of an econometric analysis of linkages between land tenure institutions and selected
productivity indicators including oxen mechanization, use of chemical fertilizers and credit, and
presence of various long-term improvements on land, including trees.
Chapter 6 reviews the nature and scale of past settlement schemes and assesses their
performance based on archival research, and analysis of primary and secondary data. The market for
private transfers and administrative allocations on newly opened lands will provide the principal
mechanisms through which people can acquire lands in agricultural areas. However, due to past
historical factors and economic hardship, some segment of the population seeking land for farming
will be unable to effectively use these mechanisms because of lack of purchasing power or the means
to resettle. The Government of Zambia (GOZ) has a long history of settlement programs that could
accommodate these disadvantaged populations. The desirability of continuing or expanding this
mechanism depends on the scale and performance of past schemes.
Chapter 7 uses available time series data to analyze national and regional changes in land use,
productivity, and profitability of agriculture, both spatially and temporally, for the commercial and
noncommercial farm sectors. This chapter was intended as a more forward-looking analysis of
economic forces influencing the profitability of farming in Zambia, the rate of expansion in the
agricultural frontier, and the resource issues that are likely to emerge in the context of agricultural
extensification. The chapter instead highlights the difficulties of using aggregate time series data for
such analyses due to structural biases and inconsistencies in the data. Relatively straightforward
questions—such as "How fast in area terms is the agrarian sector expanding?"—are rendered nearly
unanswerable by erratic swings in the data stemming partially from unreliable statistical methods and
reporting.
Interpretation of data in the above chapters depends crucially on data quality and length and
breadth of data time series. Chapter 8 provides an overview of official time series published by
various agencies in Zambia, including the state of their availability for analysis and the methodology
used to collect the data. Data presented in this and previous chapters underscore the difficulty of
making policy decisions given the very weak and tenuous base of empirical research on property