Land Tenure Security and Agricultural Investment in Cameroon: An Approximation of The Relationship in the Context of Expropriation for Public Utility

In a land governance context characterized by frequent expropriations for public utility and the dualism of customary and formal legal regimes, this study assesses the impact of tenure security on agricultural investment. Drawing on data from the Fourth Cameroon Household Survey (ECAM 4), the analysis utilizes a Two-Stage Conditional Maximum Likelihood (2SCML) approach to address endogeneity, supplemented by Modified Instrumental Variable (MIV) techniques for robustness. Tenure security is operationalized through a hierarchical classification of land rights. Our findings reveal that land tenure security exerts a positive and significant influence on agricultural investment. Enhanced security strengthens farmers’ control over their plots thereby mitigating potential conflicts and ensures eligibility for compensation in the event of state-led expropriation. This stabilized environment, in turn, fosters a virtuous cycle of investment; on average, tenure security increases land investment by over 8,000 FCFA. Furthermore, the magnitude of investment is positively correlated with the strength of the legal rights held. Compared to informal occupants (squatters), titled landholders invest an additional 32,000 FCFA, while customary owners and tenants invest 23,000 FCFA and 21,000 FCFA more, respectively. The analysis further demonstrates that perennial crops provide landholders with greater occupancy security compared to other crop types, creating a stronger incentive for long-term land improvement. However, the results also highlight systemic marginalization, with widows and immigrants possessing significantly weaker land rights relative to their counterparts. Additionally, access to credit emerges as a critical determinant in stimulating agricultural investment. Based on these empirical insights, we recommend that public authorities enhance land tenure security by streamlining access to formal land titles and establishing a specialized agricultural bank to improve credit access for farmers.