This study is motivated by the need to understand the nature and magnitude of land constraints in African agriculture, the impacts of status-quo policies on food security and poverty, and the implications for development strategy. To our knowledge, there has been little recognition of the potential challenges associated with increasingly densely populated and land-constrained areas of rural Africa. Nor has there been sufficient discussion of how institutions and policies relating to land access would need to be modified to provide the greatest prospects for achieving broad-based agricultural growth and reducing rural poverty.