During the colonial period in Mozambique the customary system of land and natural resources ownership was not clearly defined. Only by an effective occupation a person had a right to use a portion of land. During that period land was a collective property in which the division of land within the tribe or social organization had to do with the needs of families. However, the statuary systems was clearly defined in which the Colonial Portuguese government attributed concessions for cotton, sisal and tea exploitation in the northern Mozambique, timber and mineral extraction in the central part of Mozambique and the scheme of `colonatosґ in the southern Mozambique to large companies and Portuguese individuals.
For example, in the northern part of Mozambique land was allocated based on international cotton demand and price. According to Isaacman and Isaacman (1983), in the early 1940s a slight increase in cotton production led the companies to introduce quotas among smallholder growers and to take repressive measures against local farmers which resulted in an increase into the total area of cotton production, from 27,000 ha to approximately 300,000 ha. Almost all-productive farm land was diverted to cotton and sisal production.
In the Central part of Mozambique the Mozambican company was the majority concessionaire, which administered more than 100.000 sq. km. According Newitt (1995), the Mozambican company operated in the areas from 1878 through 1941 and they had the right to grant land and mineral concessions. This company acquired also the monopoly to market all the natural resources in the area including cash crops, constructed roads and improve ports. In exchange the colonial government received 10% of the shares and 7.55% of the total incomes from the exploitation of large plantations of coconut, wild rubber, sugar, sisal and cotton (First 1971).
In the 1950’s, the colonial government introduced an incentive policy to attract colonial settlers, the military and other Portuguese residents to Mozambique to take an active role in commodity production. As a result a large number of colonial settlers who employed seasonal African wage laborers came to Chokwe and seized large tracts of land from the local population to create their own plantations called “colonatos”. With an increase of large-scale rice plantations under the control of Joгo Ferreira dos Santos (JFS) in Chokwe and forced rice cultivation in some parts in the valley of Limpopo river, land become a very important commodity, in particular the land located in the irrigation schemes (Bowen 1994).
After independence, land was nationalized and the customary system, considered feudal and tribal, was undermined (Meyers 1994a) although some of the traditional systems continued in place, i.e. Macua traditional system continued to be used although with less authority. The official development strategy to collectivize agriculture—i.e., the establishment of state farms and cooperatives was introduced and they had an impact on land markets. In many areas—but not in all—rural dwellers were forced into communal villages, often located far from their own land. They could not effectively farm both their own fields and cooperative land, resulting in abandonment of family land. Land becomes an abundant resource. In many parts of the country, people moved into communal villages—a process that accelerated with the encroachment of the war in the early 1980s—and grew mostly in the cooperatives, leaving little labor to farm their own land. Land markets at this period were inexistent.
Following Mozambique's adoption of a World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment program in 1986, the government changed its development policy from socialist to capitalist. Under capitalism, communal villages, cooperatives, and state farms have been largely reduced, if not eliminated. But Mozambican farmers have been confronted with new challenges: international financial institutions (e.g., World Bank and IMF), working hand-in -hand with the government, have given resources and funding projects that promote an increasing utilization of land. In addition, parastatals (e.g., SODAN) and large privately-owned companies (Joгo Ferreira dos Santos) have been given large tracts of land to grow cash crop (Tique, 1996). Land competition started again and the land law become outdated.
No transparent measures for land allocation were in place. For example a same piece of land could be allocated to someone by the district, provincial and national authorities, even though there was people living and using it. Conflicts over land arose from an overlap of the traditional tenure system with the governmental system. The traditional system was counterbalanced by the government system which attributed the right of use to a parcel of land under legal title, recognized by the state and commonly managed at provincial and district levels by the state officials (Meyers 1994b).
The governmental boards at the provincial level had the responsibility to concede land for commercial use and other national projects, while land concessions for smallholder agriculture was defined at the local level. However, the absence of a clear definition on what constitutes commercial and smallholder farmers and the absence of a clear land policy by the government has resulted in illegal takeovers by private groups as well as by both local and provincial authorities (Bowen 1992; Pitcher 1996). According to Meyers et al. (1993), land conflicts between the local and official systems in Mozambique have increased, and showed trends of intensification if the current governmental policies continue to grant large concessions to Joint Venture Companies (JVC) and the private sector without the participation of the local authorities. For example, in Nampula approximately 85,000 hectares of land have already been granted to JVC, of which 90% have been given by the provincial authorities (Meyers et al. 1993).
After the civil war, the power of the customary authorities and their relationship with their communities and local governments officials vary throughout the country depending in most cases the degree to which the authority, Frelimo in this case, was successful in replacing them. In the northern and central Mozambique where Renamo is the most influential in many areas the customary authorities are the most dominant authorities. While in some parts of these areas controlled by Frelimo the official authorities had a very slight power of the land, since customary leaders continued to operate unofficial. The dual authorities result from the fact that the local populations does not recognized the governmental as the authority in the area.
In 1995 the traditional chiefs (regulos, mwenes, cabos and capitгes) requested the government to restore their authority as leaders of their community with all benefits and rights acquired during the colonial period. Their authority, mainly of the regulos, was partially restored to include land allocation, resolution of land disputes and authorization to temporarily use the land they cultivated during the colonial period. They had preferential access to land which, in general, they divided among themselves, taking the large and most fertile parcels.
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