Soil Atlas 2024
Secure land access is essential for long-term soil protection because it enables land users to implement practices that enhance soil health and maintain its productivity over time. However, in many African countries, women’s land rights remain precarious, creating significant barriers to investing in sustainable soil management.
In Africa, an estimated 65 percent of productive land is degraded, while 45 percent of the continent is affected by desertification. Various initiatives have sought to restore and protect agricultural soils, often targeting smallholders with less than 2 hectares of land, who make up 80 percent of African farmers. These initiatives provide training on crop rotation, planting cover crops, and other practices to boost soil fertility, as well as promote natural measures to fight soil erosion, such as hedges, earth bunds, terraces, and agroforestry. They also offer direct inputs such as seeds, tree seedlings, and agricultural equipment.
But farmers often stop applying such practices once a project ends. There are many reasons for this, including a lack of access to advisory services, markets, and agricultural inputs. Moreover, farmers who lack secure tenure have little incentive to invest in practices that enrich their soil in the long term, such as agroforestry and terracing, because these may bear fruit only after several years.
Both women and young farmers are particularly affected by insecure access to land. Estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) suggest that in Sub-Saharan Africa, around half of the workforce in agriculture are women, yet they control around 15 percent of farmland. Women may have the right to use or manage the land, but they do not own it. Their power to decide what to grow, or whether to lease or sell the land, is therefore limited. Traditionally, women’s land rights are tied to those of their husbands or other male relatives. And the plots allocated to women are usually small and less fertile.
The Soil Atlas 2024 presents data and facts about the importance and condition of land, soils and arable land. In numerous graphics and text contributions, it provides a current insight into the condition of and threats to the soils on which we live.
Research in Burkina Faso revealed a paradox: the efforts of women farmers to improve the soil health and productivity may actually increase the risk of losing their tenure. This phenomenon, known as forced rotation, sees landowners – often husbands – reclaiming the most productive land from women to grow cash crops such as cotton.
Similar to Burkina Faso, women in Kenya traditionally gain access to land through their menfolk. Despite the existence of laws and policies for gender equality, many women farmers in Kenya are vulnerable and marginalised. Widows, in particular, often struggle to retain control over land they legally own. It is still common for a woman to be forced to give up her land if her husband dies. Women therefore often resort to leasing land to feed their families or generate income. Yet such leasehold agreements are typically short term and orally agreed, denying women the ability to invest in long-term practices, such as soil conservation.
To counter this, local initiatives have been developed to bolster women’s land rights. In Southwestern Burkina Faso, one such initiative tackles the issue of forced land rotation. Building on traditional governance models, it helps families and villages reach consensus on tenure arrangements. The aim is to make such arrangements more equitable and secure for women. Following a multi-phase negotiation process involving a range of stakeholders, including traditional village chiefs, the male heads of households agree to transfer long-term land usage rights to their wives or other female relatives.
In Kakamega County in western Kenya, a grassroots, women-led initiative developed guidelines that provide transparent and mutually agreed terms for leasing land. An evaluation in 2021 found that this initiative improved land access for women and also led to more sustainable soil management. Tenants who followed the new leasing guidelines were twice as likely to apply sustainable practices, such as cover crops, mulching, and crop rotation, compared to those who followed the previous, informal leasing arrangements.
To address gender gaps in land restoration, political decision-makers need to engage more with communities. This will give them a better understanding of issues around women’s access to land and soil management practices, both of which vary locally. Only then can solutions be devised that genuinely respond to local needs. Grassroots organisations can help identify such solutions by facilitating dialogue between communities and institutions.
Internationally, tenure security is now broadly acknowledged as a critical basis for sustainable land and soil management. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) passed a resolution in 2019 recognising responsible land governance as essential to sustainable land management, and emphasising its role in combatting desertification, land degradation, and drought. Women are often the primary stewards of land and natural resources, and therefore play a central role in promoting agricultural productivity and natural resource management. It is essential that they enjoy equitable access and rights to land. Good intentions are not enough: political will and widespread action are needed to ensure gender justice in land governance.
