Definition:

The indicator consists of two sub-indicators.

Sub-indicator 5.a.1 (a):

No. of people in agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land	$\times$ 100, by sex
Total agricultural population

Sub-indicator 5.a.1 (a) is a prevalence measure. It measures the prevalence of people in the agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land, disaggregated by sex.

Land ownership is a legally recognised right to acquire, to use and to transfer land. “Secure rights” in the context of indicator 5.a.1 is defined as secure tenure rights, i.e., rights to use, manage and control land, fisheries and forests, in the sense of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security^[1]. Operationally, for the purposes of measurement of this indicator, secure tenure rights comprise both land ownership and two key alienation rights: the right to sell and the right to bequeath agricultural land.

Sub-indicator 5.a.1 (b):

Number of women in the agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land	$\times$ 100, by type of tenure
Total in the agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land

Sub-indicator 5.a.1 (b) focuses on gender parity, measuring the extent to which women are disadvantaged in ownership or secure rights over agricultural land.

Broad types of tenure identified by the IAEG-SDG are freehold, customary and leasehold.

Concepts and terms:

The basic concepts and terms essential to collecting data needed to compute SDG indicator 5.a.1 are the following:

Agricultural land
Agricultural household
Agricultural population
Ownership or secure rights over agricultural land

(1) Agricultural land

Land is considered ‘agricultural land’ according to its use. The classes and definitions of land use are based on the classification of land use for the agricultural census recommended by the World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2020^[2].

As shown in Figure 1 below, agricultural land is a subset of the total land of a country. In particular, agricultural land includes:

LU1- land under temporary crops^[3]
LU2- land under temporary meadows and pastures^[4]
LU3- land temporarily fallow^[5]
LU4- land under permanent crops^[6]
LU5- land under permanent meadows and pastures^[7]

Figure 1. Classification of land use (WCA 2020)

Since indicator 5.a.1 focuses on agricultural land, it excludes all the forms of land that are not considered ‘agricultural’, namely:

LU6- land under farm buildings and farmyards
LU7- forest and other wooded land
LU8- area used for aquaculture (including inland and coastal waters if part of the holding)
LU9- other area not elsewhere classified

The land use class of agricultural land is with respect to a specific reference period; thus, the reference period should be specified when collecting data on land use. As further discussed below, the reference period should cover a 12-month period. In agricultural censuses and surveys, this is generally the preceding 12 months.

(2) Agricultural household

Ownership or secure rights over agricultural land are specifically relevant to individuals whose livelihood relies on agriculture. These individuals are identified by way of whether their household^[8] can be classified as an agricultural household which for purposes of calculating indicator 5.a.1 is characterized by the following:

Criterion 1: A member or members of the household operated land for agricultural purposes or raised livestock over the past 12 months regardless of the final purpose of production

and

Criterion 2: At least one member of the household operated land for agricultural purposes or raised livestock as an own-account worker.

The definition considers that since agricultural land includes both crop land (LU1-LU4) and meadows and pastures (LU5), ownership or secure rights over agricultural land are relevant for households operating land and/or raising or tending livestock. Engagement in forestry, logging, fishing and aquaculture activities is not included because the focus of the indicator is on agricultural land.

Households who own or have secure rights over agricultural land but did not farm the land nor used the land in raising/tending livestock during the reference period are excluded, because the indicator focuses on households whose livelihood is linked to practicing agriculture.

The long reference period-- previous 12 months-- allows to capture agricultural households even when data collection occurs during the off-season or when households are not engaged in agricultural activity at the time of the survey. That is, since agricultural work is highly irregular and strongly affected by seasonality, a short reference period would exclude such households.

The specification “regardless of the final purpose of production” ensures the inclusion of households that produce only for own consumption. It addresses a common problem where agriculture practiced only or mainly for own consumption, without any market orientation (so, with no or little income) is not perceived as an economic activity by respondents.

The second criterion for a household to be classified as an agricultural household for purposes of computing the sub-indicators 5.a.1(a) and 5.a.1(b) is that at least one household member farms or raises livestock as an own-account worker. Thus, information on the status in employment and, for those employed, the industry in which they are employed, and their occupation need to be collected for each member of the household.

(3) Agricultural population

The reference population for indicator 5.a.1 is the population of adult individuals living in agricultural households (as defined above). For purposes of international comparability, the recommended definition of “adult” is a person who is 18 years old or older. However, countries could use their own definitions of adult but allow for the calculation of statistics based on the 18-years old definition.

Once a household is classified as an ‘agricultural household’, all the adult household members are considered as part of the reference population (to be referred to simply as the “agricultural population” in this document).

The adoption of a household perspective is particularly important from the gender perspective, because in many agricultural households, women often consider themselves as not being involved in agriculture, even though they provide substantive support to the household’s agricultural activities. In addition, the individual’s livelihood cannot be completely detached from the livelihood of the other household members; and in particular, for households operating agricultural land or raising livestock, land is an important asset for all the individuals and protects them in case the household dissolves.

When the data is collected in agricultural surveys or censuses, usually the statistical unit is the agricultural holding or farm. The WCA 2020 classifies holdings into two types: (i) holdings in the household sector; i.e., those operated by household members and (ii) holdings in the non-household sector, such as corporations. For a given household sector holding, there may be one or more producers and the agricultural population is defined as the adult members of the households of the producers. It is important to note, that someone employed in the agricultural holding is not a producer. Holdings in the non-household sector are not relevant for the estimation of indicator 5.a.1.

(4) Ownership of agricultural land and secure rights over agricultural land

It is challenging to operationalize the definition of ownership of and secure rights to agricultural land for purposes of data collection. In addition, differences in legal systems and how legal systems protect rights to agricultural land across countries poses challenges in providing comparable statistics across countries. The discussion below:

Land ownership is a legally recognised right to acquire, to use and to transfer land. For purposes of specifying the data that needs to be collected, it is useful to recognize three broad typologies of land ownership systems:

Private property systems, where land ownership is predominantly a right akin to a freehold tenure.
Systems where land is owned by the State, where “land ownership” in the sense of private property systems does not exist but refers to possession of the rights most akin to ownership in a private property system. In this context, it is more appropriate to speak of tenure rights that capture an individual’s capacity to control and take decisions over the land-- for instance, long-term leases, occupancy, tenancy or use rights granted by the State that are transferable and are granted to users for several decades (e.g., 99 years).
Communal land tenure system, where land is primarily held under a tribal, communal, or traditional form of tenure. Such arrangements usually involve land being held on a tribal, village, kindred or clan basis, with land ownership being communal in character but with certain individual rights being held by virtue of membership in the social unit.

In many countries, a combination of systems of ownership as well as secure tenure rights to land may exist. A common combination would be where the private property system prevails, but with pockets of state-owned and/or communal land. For some countries, the system may primarily be that of state-owned land or communal land.

Considering the above, as well as the need for comparability of estimates across countries, to determine whether an individual is said to have ownership or secure rights to agricultural land three conditions (proxies) are considered:

Formal documentation:

Proxy 1- Presence of legally recognised documents in the name of the individual

Alienation rights:

Proxy 2- Right to sell

Proxy 3- Right to bequeath

These proxies are further described below.

Formal documentation

Proxy 1 refers to the existence of any document that an individual can use to claim property rights before the law over an asset by virtue of the individual’s name being listed as owner/co-owner or holder/co-holder on the document.

It is not possible to provide an exhaustive list of documents that could be considered as formal proof of ownership (for private property systems) or secure tenure rights (for state-owned or communal land systems) across countries. Examples of common relevant legal documents are provided in the discussion below. It is recommended that the list of documents be customised in accordance with land ownership laws of the country. It is further recommended that:

Private property systems

For private property systems, the following are typically considered as formal written proof of ownership:

Title deed: “a written or printed instrument that effects a legal disposition”^[9]
Certificate of occupancy or land certificate: “A land certificate is a certified copy of an entry in a land title system and provides proof of the ownership and of encumbrances on the land at that time”^[10]
Purchase agreement: a contract between a seller and a buyer to dispose of land
Registered certificate of hereditary acquisition
Certificate issued for adverse possession or prescription: is a certificate indicating that the adverse possessor acquires the land after a prescribed statutory period.

It is to be noted that agricultural land possessed or used under a rental contract or leasehold is outside the coverage of indicator 5.a.1. Ownership of land confers on the holder a series of crucial benefits leading to economic empowerment - from being able to use it as collateral to having a higher propensity to invest in one’s own asset – these benefits are drastically reduced or even absent in the case of rentals or leases.

Customary/communal land tenure

For land covered by customary tenure laws, the types of tenure and associated rights vary considerably. Thus, it is recommended that the list of relevant documents be prepared according to each country’s customary laws. An example of a relevant document is:

Certificate of customary tenure: an official state document indicating the owner or holder of the land because customary law has recognized that particular person as the rightful owner. It can be used as proof of legal right over the land. These certificates include, among others, certificates of customary ownership and customary use.

Systems where land is owned by the state

Similarly, for state-owned land, associated formal documents of ownership-like possession should be specified according to the country’s land laws. An example of a relevant document is:

Registered certificate of perpetual / long term lease: “a contractual agreement between the state and a tenant for the tenancy of land. A lease or tenancy agreement is the contractual document used to create a leasehold interest or tenancy” ^[11]

Note that findings from the Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE) project^[12] clearly show that using legally recognized documents alone to establish ownership is not sufficient to analyse the complexity of rights related to land, especially in developing countries and from the gender perspective. The main factor limiting the universal applicability of legally recognized documents to define ownership is the diverse penetration of such legally binding documents.

Alienation rights

In the absence of formal written documentation alienation rights over land, which can be present even in contexts where tenure rights are not formally documented, can serve as a proxy for ownership or secure rights. Alienation is defined as the ability to transfer a given asset during lifetime (Proxy 2- right to sell) or after death (Proxy 3- right to bequeath).

The “right to sell” refers to the ability of an individual to permanently transfer the asset in question in return for cash or in-kind benefits.

The “right to bequeath” refers to the ability of an individual to pass on the asset in question to other person(s) after their death, by written will, oral will (if recognized by the country) or when the deceased left no will, through intestate succession.

The right to sell and the right to bequeath are considered as objective facts that carry legal force as opposed to a simple self-reported declaration of tenure rights over land.

For purposes of data collection for 5.a.1, countries should clearly indicate whether these two alienation rights are relevant to the concept of land ownership in their legal contexts. This is particularly important in relation to land use under systems where land is owned by the state and customary/communal land.

It is recommended that data on all three proxies be collected for purposes of compiling indicator 5.a.1. The decision to rely on the three proxies is based on the results of seven field tests conducted by the EDGE project. The tests demonstrated:

The lower reliability of data on reported ownership/possession. Data on ownership/possession are often collected through a question on whether the individual owns any agricultural land. The data collected captures the self-perception of the respondent’s ownership or possession status of the land, irrespective of whether the respondent has formal documentation. The study showed that such data was often neither supported by any kind of documentation nor by the possession of any alienation right.
The need to consider as ‘owners’ or ‘holders of tenure rights’ only the individuals who are linked to the agricultural land by an objective right over it, including both formal legal possession and alienation rights.
The need to combine different proxies, as no single proxy is universally applicable in defining land ownership or secure tenure rights.

A Note on “(Self) Reported Ownership/Possession of Agricultural Land”

As mentioned above, reported ownership or possession is relatively less reliable than documented ownership. However, in a situation where a country has scarce data on formal documentation along with missing information on alienation rights, reported ownership could still be a temporarily useful alternative for comparing ownership between men and women. However, estimates computed based mainly on reported ownership weakens the international comparability of estimates across countries. Therefore, it is highly recommended that the survey questionnaire be modified in a manner that both documented ownership and alienation rights are included, as defined above, in order to calculate the indicator using the correct methodology.

¹

Refer to https://www.fao.org/tenure/voluntary-guidelines/en/ ↑

²

FAO. 2015. World Programme for the Census of Agriculture 2020- Volume 1: Programme, concepts and definitions. FAO Statistical Development Series 15, paras 8.2.13 – 8.2.28. ↑

³

Defined as: “all land used for crops with a less than one-year growing cycle” (WCA 2020). Temporary crops comprise all the crops that need to be sown or planted after each harvest for new production (e.g., cereals). The full list of crops classified as ‘temporary’ is provided in the WCA 2020 (page 165, http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4913e.pdf) ↑

⁴

Defined as: “land that has been cultivated for less than five years with herbaceous or forage crops for mowing or pasture”. ↑

⁵

When arable land is kept at rest for at least one agricultural year because of crop rotation or other reasons, such as the impossibility to plant new crops, this is defined as temporarily fallow. This category does not include the land that it is not cultivated at the time of the survey but will be sowed and planted before the end of the agricultural year. ↑

⁶

Area that is cultivated with long term crops that do not need to be replanted every year, such as fruits and nuts, some types of stimulant crops, etc. ↑

⁷

Land cultivated with herbaceous forage crops or is left as wild prairie or grazing land for more than five years. ↑

⁸

Household is defined according to the United Nations Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 3 @ https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/seriesM/Series_M67rev3en.pdf ↑

⁹

Source: “Multilingual thesaurus on land tenure”, FAO 2003 ↑

¹⁰

Source: “Multilingual thesaurus on land tenure”, FAO 2003 ↑

¹¹

Source: “Multilingual thesaurus on land tenure”, FAO 2003 ↑

¹²

Source: “UN Methodological Guidelines on the Production of Statistics on Asset Ownership from a Gender Perspective” Draft Guidelines submitted at the UN Statistical Commission in March 2017 ↑

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