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and the likelihood of adopting all agricultural development indicators in Eastern province. This
result is appealing from an economic perspective since it points toward the movements of
production factors to achieve economic efficiency. In this case, the greater use of land
improvements by larger farms helps to equate land yields across different farm sizes; smaller
farms generally apply more labor per unit of land.
B. Implications for further research
This research has provided some insight into rural land tenure arrangements and how they
relate to agricultural productivity. But since the LTC/ICRAF study was not designed to tackle the
broad and complex issues involved in explaining agricultural productivity, the results are only
preliminary. Several recommendations for improvement in methodology and content arise from this
study. First, it is obvious that work must be done in a wider geographical area. Second, for all study
sites, it is necessary to define tenure security and measure it. A number of recent studies have
explored the possibility of using land rights as a proxy. Is this adequate? If so, which rights are most
important for agricultural productivity in Zambia? If not, what are the alternatives from an operational
point of view? Once this is resolved, it will be crucial to understand which factors are linked to tenure
security. This study has found possible links between wealth and tenure security. This issue needs
careful attention because it has important implications for the effectiveness of tenure policy change.
Once the tenure side of equation is better understood, more attention needs to be given to the
productivity measures, where, clearly, better measures need to be developed and used. Relying on
binary data is not sufficient, particularly when a particular investment is made by most farmers (e.g.,
use of chemical fertilizer). Moreover, this study did not consider many important measures such as
crop or livestock output. These in turn are related to efficiency per unit of input (e.g., land) as well
as the area under production.
The relationship between tenure, grazing, livestock management, land use, land investment,
and market access are crucial to understanding the effects of land policy interventions. These linkages
all stood beyond the scope and intent of the present study and, in light of the lack of sufficiently
rigorous analytical work on such themes elsewhere in Zambia, represent key issues for future
research.