Development of farming area and insecurity of land owning in the Zio valley, South of Togo

The development of farming area for agro-economic production improves the local exploitation system by introducing new productive forces in terms of equipments. The agricultural development of lands in this process calls for multiple actors in relation to land, and having opposing interests. The promotion of the development of agriculture production structures, and the economic interests that this reinforces, makes the landowning and its conservation the main stakes of production relations. This study describes the insecurity of landowning in the Zio valley, south of Togo, in terms of a fight generated by the discontinuity between the development of farming areas and land reform. The area has been subject to a country planning project in the past which could not lead to the security in landowning by a reform which would take into account the interests of different actors. After the end of the project, this situation has reinforced the power of landowners who use their position to increase their interests. The issues related to the preservation of the existing power struggle, having access to land and to its control are at the source of the strategies opposing the owners to the farmers, as well as among the farmers themselves. The land insecurity stems therefore from the strategies of the actors for the control of the resource that land represents in a context marked by the absence of a right of possession reform.