By Astrid Zweynert LONDON (AlertNet) – Owning the land rights to
even a tiny plot of land can help poor people to get out of
poverty and improve their access to nutritious food, research
has shown. AlertNet spoke to Tim Hanstad, chief executive and
president of social enterprise Landesa, a global land rights
advocacy group, about how owning the legal title to your land
can help improve food security and nutrition, lead to long-term
investment by small farmers and what steps Rwanda and China have
been taking to improve land rights. Landesa says more than 1
billion people, most of them in rural areas, are estimated to
lack legal rights over the land they use to survive, causing
poverty to persist over generations and contributing to
malnutrition and hunger. Q: How can land rights make a
difference to food security? A: The issue of food security has
to be looked at the household level. Many of the food insecure
people in the world, ironically, are involved in agriculture but
still don’t get enough food for their