The large farm sectors in the economies of Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are important exceptions. Because of land market restrictions, it is questionable whether the formal land market in fact increases tenure security. It has in Southern Africa but in ways that have protected minority interests. The land law in Somalia and Mozambique provided few enhancements in tenure security, but title demand was high either to gain access to a concession by government, or to protect ones interest against government handing out your land to another. Most of the economies in the newly independent states remain too much in the throes of economic depression to adequately identify or evaluate linkages.
Market failures abound.
Unfortunately, many of these studies were carried out in rural settings with limited markets and technological options. Studies that have rigorously examined these linkages in situations of commercial opportunity are indeed limited. It would be quite interesting for example to reexamine this issue in Zimbabwe, which has successfully begun to broaden access of smallholders to markets. The currency and generalizability of the above studies need to be tested in the wake of structural adjustment on the continent, and World Bank conclusions that African countries have taken big steps in devaluing exchange rates that penalized agricultural exports and removing price controls that affected domestic food production. Simply put, changes in markets and economic incentives on the continent have made many prior studies obsolete.