Abstract :
[en] The objective of this background paper is to provide a succinct description of the land tenure situation in Cambodia and, on that basis, discuss the needs smallholder farmers have for land, projected up to the year 2030. The main problem it examines lies at the intersection between, on one hand, the demographic increase in the rural smallholder population and its associated need for land in the future (the demand side) and, on the other hand, the possibility offered by the different land tenure regimes to meet this demand (the supply side); the central question focuses on how supply can meet demand.By looking first at how much land is available under different categories (the supply side), the paper succinctly presents and maps the different land tenure regimes with updated statistics and discusses their main outcomes and shortcomings. On that basis, we present a preliminary assessment of land distribution by main land tenure systems in Cambodia.
The land under cultivation by smallholders represents 19 percent of the total area of the national territory and is itself sub-divided into agricultural land with land titles (systematic land registration, 6 percent and land covered by the Order 01, 6 percent), under Social Land Concession arrangements (1 percent) and untitled (6 percent). The forest cover includes forest concessions (10 percent), Community Forestry (2 percent), Protected Areas and Protection Forests (20 percent) and an unclassified forest cover area (14 percent). Economic Land Concessions under operation represent 12 percent while cancelled concessions represent 2 percent of the total territory. The actual tenure of a large non-forested area (14 percent) remains undetermined and further updates are needed to shed light on this issue.
The paper suggests that the central problem of the current Cambodian land reform is its ineffectiveness in coordinating the processes of land rights security and formalization in lowland and upland areas, although both regions are closely linked through land-driven migration movements that have intensified over the past 20 years. This has been particularly contentious given the fact that in a parallel process, and driven by a strong, state-based political economy, large land deals have been concentrated in the uplands of the entire country along processes that are exclusionary in nature. The overlap of competing land claims has created a widespread conflict situation in all uplands region of the country.
By looking at how much land is needed for family farmers in the future (the demand side), the paper anticipates the land requirements of smallholder farmers by 2030 based on the projected demographic increase in the economically active population in rural Cambodia and on two sets of scenarios i) the transfer of unskilled labour from the agricultural to the secondary and tertiary sectors (industries and services) and ii) the provision of land for smallholder farmers.
The analysis suggests that by the year 2030, the transfer of unskilled labour from agriculture to the secondary and tertiary sectors will lag behind the demographic increase in the active rural population. With 2015 as a baseline, the scenarios suggests that by 2030 smallholder farmers will need an additional land area ranging from 320,600 ha (+10 percent in relation to the actual area at the present time) to 1,962,400 (+64 percent), with an average desirable scenario of 1,622.000 ha based on an allocation of 1ha per active labourer (in accordance with the present social concession policy) and on the continuation of the present transfer rate of unskilled manpower from agriculture to the secondary and tertiary sectors (i.e. the transfer of 40.000 workers per year).
So the question that needs to be formulated does not revolve around whether or not the rural population will need land in the future, but rather around how this can occur. Along these lines, the paper discusses different options, which are not mutually exclusive, to allocate this land without further impact on the forest cover: i) by redistribution of land from cancelled Economic Land Concessions, ii) through a firmer recognition of swidden agriculture inside Protected Areas, iii) through a far more ambitious Social Land Concession programme and iv) through further reform of the forest concession system.
The paper concludes by stressing the need for relevant ministries to engage in open and constructive research-based discussion so that these options can materialize into concrete actions.
