"The Farmland Law and the VFV Law were approved by Parliament on March 30th, 2012. There have been a few improvements compared to previous laws such as recognition of non-rotational taungya as a legitimate land-use and recognition that farmers are using VFV lands without formal recognition by the Government. However overall the Laws lack clarity and provide weak protection of the rights of smallholder farmers in upland areas and do not explicitly state the equal rights of women to register and inherit land or be granted land-use rights for VFV land. The Laws remain designed primarily to foster promotion of large-scale agricultural investment and fail to provide adequate safeguards for the majority of farmers who are smallholders. In particular tenure security for farmland remains weak due to the Government retaining power to rescind farm land use rights leaving smallholders vulnerable to dispossession of their land-use rights. In addition there remains some unnecessary de-facto government control over the crop choices of farmers. In particular it is recommended that recognition of land-use rights under customary law and the creation of mechanisms for communal registration of land-use rights, be included in the Farmland and VFV Laws. There needs to be a comprehensive process of re-classifying land in the country to reflect land-use changes resulting from conversion of forests and VFV land into agricultural land, loss of agricultural land due to development projects, urban expansion and population growth. This will serve to reduce land conflict in the countryside and provide genuine tenure security for smallholders. Furthermore the specific and independent rights of women must be explicitly stated in the Laws. Added to this the fundamental principle of free, prior and informed consent should be enshrined, especially in regard to removal of land-use rights in the national interest. It is also necessary that the Government works in partnership with civil society and farmers associations to revise the Farmland and VFV Laws..."