Presented by Gundula Fischer, Akosua Darkwah, Judith Kamoto and Jessica Kampanje-Phiri at the Tropentag 2019: Filling Gaps and Removing Traps for Sustainable Resource Management, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany, 18–20 September 2019.

1. andManaged byFunded by
Sustainable agricultural intensification
and gender- and age-biased land tenure systems
Gundula Fischer1, Akosua Darkwah2, Judith Kamoto3 and Jessica Kampanje-Phiri3
1International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, 2University of Ghana and 3Lilongwe
University of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Tropentag 2019
20 September 2019, Kassel, Germany

2. SAI: “… producing more outputs from the same
area of land ...“ (Pretty et al. 2011, 7)
Limitation of agricultural land use:
• How does it relate to existing inequitable land tenure
systems?
• Equitable outcomes: Does this limitation imply a
redistribution of land and benefits?
Topic not yet explicitly discussed or investigated

3. Methods: mostly semi-structured interviews, few focus group
discussions, 102 transcriptions
Comparative design: Ghana and Malawi, communities with
relatively lower and higher access to land for women
Respondents: 148 men and women (including under 35 years)
Social relations approach (Kabeer): four key institutional
domains (household, community, market, government)

4. Results
• Limitation on agricultural land use already becoming a reality
(land pressure).
• Expansion as strategy of less privileged.
• SAI practices important, but gender-blind SAI interventions
may contribute to new or existing inequalities.
• Land pressure manifests itself in different institutional sites.
• Examples: Tolon/Ghana, Dedza/Malawi.

5. Outlook
• SAI scholars to examine how limitation on land land use
reads against land competition.
• SAI projects to identify entry points for gender-
transformative activities to go hand in hand with
technologies.
• Examples for entry points (identified by respondents).
• Seek out measures in several domains for sustainable
transformation.

6. The Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Research and Learning in Africa
(SAIRLA)
http://www.sairla.nri.org/news
This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
andManaged byFunded by
Thank You