Land Tenure, Land Use, and Land Degradation: A Case for Sustainable Development in Pakistan

Prevalent approaches to land degradation tend to recognize linkages between land use behavior and land degradation. They, however, do not sufficiently account for land tenure's causality to land degradation. This article argues that land tenure, land use, and land degradation are interlinked in Pakistan, where uneven access to the land engenders intensification of its use by large and small holders, contributing to land degradation. Large landholders tend to overirrigate cash crops, which causes land degradation from waterlogging and salinity. Similarly, small holders and tenant farmers intensively use their small holdings to pay for self-subsistence, cost of production, and rent on the land (latter in tenants' case). Waterlogging and salinity, in turn, diminish farm productivity, especially productivity of the cotton crop that forms the spine of Pakistan's economy. This article makes a case for land reforms to widen the access of land-strapped rural residents to land resources, and sustainable development in Pakistan.