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| Title: | Property rights and rural resource management: the case of tree crops in West Africa |
| Author: | Berry, Sara |
| Year: | 1987 |
| Issue: | 122 |
| Pages: | 16 |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Working papers |
| City of publisher: | Boston, MA |
| Publisher: | African Studies Center, Boston University |
| Geographic term: | West Africa |
| Subjects: | property rights land law agroforestry |
| Abstract: | The spread of tree crop production in West Africa introduced a potentially significant force for privatization of rural rights in land. Tree crops are generally considered to be the personal property of the individual who plants them. Planters control output of tree crop farms and may also alienate the trees - by lease, gift, mortgage, or sale. In principle rights in trees do not extend to the land on which they are planted, but in practice transfers of trees by sale or pledge have come to be treated as transfers of rights in land as well. This paper describes and illustrates processes whereby rights in farms have proliferated over time. Then the author traces changing patterns of rights in tree crop farms for two socially defined categories of people - women and sharecroppers - in order to illustrate the ways in which social relations have influenced the construction of property rights and patterns of differential access to rural assets. She concludes with some comments on the implications of changing rights in tree crop farms for the conceptualization of rural property rights and their influence on patterns of agricultural development and rural differentiation in West Africa. |