From Informal to Intelligent Agriculture: A Digital Transformation Framework for Land Leasing

Abstract

The leasing of agricultural land is very crucial in sustaining the smallholder farmers and rural economies, and it is more so in developing regions where land is sub-divided in small parcels and land access is limited. Even though it is noteworthy, agricultural land leasing is largely informal, being founded on oral or unregistered contracts that are not legally binding and are not registered in institutions. This informality puts the tenant farmers in a position of being insecure, inaccessible to credit, insurance and government welfare systems and this discourages long- term investments in land productivity. Despite the fact that governments in the world have come far in terms of digitalizing land ownership records and improving the concept of digital agriculture, lease agreements remain largely beyond the digital ecosystems.

The paper will provide an elaborate blueprint of digital transformation that will enable to transform the informal leasing of agricultural lands to an intelligent, structured, and transparent system. It is a framework that integrates the digital lease records, crop and decision support advisory systems, institutional integration systems to improve agricultural planning, financial inclusion, and governance. The paper has determined the role of digital land leasing to enhance the use of resources, reduce transaction costs, enhance the security of tenants, and sustainable development of agricultural resources based on secondary data, policy reports, and available literature. The proposed solution is a policy-consistent and scalable solution that can empower the rural livelihoods and improve the effectiveness of the agricultural governance.