Africa's changing farm size distribution patterns: the rise of medium‐scale farms

This study assesses changes over the past decade in the farm size distributions of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, drawing on two or more waves of nationally representative population‐based and/or area‐based surveys. Analysis indicates that much of Sub‐Saharan Africa is experiencing major changes in farm land ownership patterns. Among all farms below 100 hectares in size, the share of land on small‐scale holdings under five hectares has declined except in Kenya. Medium‐scale farms (defined here as farm holdings between 5 and 100 hectares) account for a rising share of total farmland, especially in the 10–100 hectare range where the number of these farms is growing especially rapidly. Medium‐scale farms control roughly 20% of total farmland in Kenya, 32% in Ghana, 39% in Tanzania, and over 50% in Zambia. The numbers of such farms are also growing very rapidly, except in Kenya. We also conducted detailed life history surveys of medium‐scale farmers in each of these four countries and found that the rapid rise of medium‐scale holdings in most cases reflects increased interest in land by urban‐based professionals or influential rural people. About half of these farmers obtained their land later in life, financed by nonfarm income. The rise of medium‐scale farms is affecting the region in diverse ways that are difficult to generalize. Many such farms are a source of dynamism, technical change, and commercialization of African agriculture. However, medium‐scale land acquisitions may exacerbate land scarcity in rural areas and constrain the rate of growth in the number of small‐scale farm holdings. Medium‐scale farmers tend to dominate farm lobby groups and influence agricultural policies and public expenditures to agriculture in their favor. Nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from six countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia) show that urban households own 5–35% of total agricultural land and that this share is rising in all countries where DHS surveys were repeated. This suggests a new and hitherto unrecognized channel by which medium‐scale farmers may be altering the strength and location of agricultural growth and employment multipliers between rural and urban areas. Given current trends, medium‐scale farms are likely to soon become the dominant scale of farming in many African countries.     

都市郊区农地规模经营综合效益分析——基于北京市规模经营主体的多案例研究

目的 规模经营是破解“小规模、分散化”农地经营格局的关键举措,考察农地规模经营的综合效益对推进农业现代化具有重要意义。方法 文章以规模经营主体为研究对象,通过采用多案例研究法,分析农业龙头企业、合作社及家庭农场3种不同类型主体的农地规模经营综合效益。结果 尽管不同类型规模经营主体各有特点,但都能实现规模经营经济效益、生态效益和社会效益。规模经营过程中,农业龙头企业仍面临土地和劳动力成本居高不下问题,合作社存在与小农户链接松散问题,家庭农场面临资金不足问题,各主体皆未能实现一二三产融合发展。结论 建议改善农业龙头企业外部环境,开展租金和就业支持补贴;规范合作社运营,提高小农户参与度;帮助家庭农场进行品牌塑造,提高家庭农场核心竞争力;大力推进一二三产融合发展,开展多形式培训、考核。     

Land reform and land fragmentation in Central and Eastern Europe

It has often been stated that land fragmentation and farm structures characterized by small agricultural holdings and farms divided in a large number of parcels have been the side-effect of land reform in Central and Eastern Europe. This article reports the findings of a study of land reform in 25 countries in the region from 1989 and onwards and provides an overview of applied land reform approaches. With a basis in theory on land fragmentation, the linkage between land reform approaches and land fragmentation is explored. It is discussed in which situations land fragmentation is a barrier for the development of the agricultural and rural sector. The main finding is that land fragmentation is often hampering agricultural and rural development when both land ownership and land use is highly fragmented.     

MEASUREMENT OF TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY IN THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER PROVINCE OF PAKISTAN

The objective of this study is to measure technical efficiency, using a translog frontier production function on cross-sectional data from 397 farms in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1988–89. The estimated farm level technical efficiency is found to be dependent upon levels of credit and education, farmers' ages and the extent of land fragmentation. Lack of education, restricted credit and fragmented holdings are found to be causes of inefficiency; hence policies which consolidate holdings, provide credit or educate farmers will tend to improve efficiency in agriculture.     

Are preserved farms actively engaged in agriculture and conservation?

This study addresses the question of whether farms enrolled in land preservation programs are actively engaged in agricultural or conservation activities. Data are drawn from an original survey administered to preserved farm owners in the states of New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in 2011. “Actively engaged” is defined as investment in conservation projects, buildings, equipment, or irrigation since the land was preserved. Affirmative answers to the survey's investment questions range from a low of 19% for irrigation to a high of 69% for equipment. Special attention was paid to differences between lifestyle farmers and small and large commercial farmers, which are classified using the USDA typology developed in 2000. Regression analysis estimates differences in investment behavior across these groups as well as farm tenure categories, controlling for farm size, program/state location, and demographic variables. Only owners who employ tenants or managers exclusively on their land were found to invest significantly less than the largest professional farmers, and they did so across all four types of investment.This study's findings support preservation goals articulated by legislators and program administrators, because (1) agricultural and land stewardship investments appear to be widespread on preserved farms, partly due to administrators’ preference for larger parcels, (2) there is no evidence that “hobby farmers” are disproportionately attracted to farmland preservation programs – in fact the opposite seems to be true – while those that exist in our sample behave similarly to the largest commercial farmers, (3) although tenant farming is associated in the sample with lower rates of investment, it is less common on preserved farms than on all farms in the three study states. The matter of land tenure, highlighted in this as in other studies, has not yet become a primary focus of either farm-behavioral research or state agricultural policy.     

家庭农场：我国农业现代化建设的路径选择——基于家庭农场与传统小农户、雇工农场的比较

本文通过梳理家庭农场等相关概念,认为家庭农场作为一种新型农业经营主体,具有家庭经营、适度规模、集约化生产、商品化经营、农业收入为主等五个基本特征;并通过比较家庭农场、传统小农户和雇工农场三种经营主体,发现家庭农场既把现代农业要素融入到了传统意义上的农户家庭经营中,又避免了雇工农场大规模流转土地带来的解放劳动力过多、企业运行风险累及农民、农作精细化程度不够等问题,是农业从传统农业走向现代农业的路径选择。     

家庭农场与农户小规模农地对农业技术服务需求行为差异及影响因素

［目的］在农业的发展过程中，以集约化土地种植为主的新型经营主体将极大地促进农业的现代化发展，这是新型的农业经营主体追求效益的最大化的选择性行为，也是政府主导和扶持的新型农民的政策缩影。文章探讨现代农业发展的背景下不同种植规模经营主体对于农业技术服务的需求行为差异和影响因素。［方法］以新疆棉区的1 043户小规模种植农户和683户家庭农场主的调查数据为例，对以家庭农场（种植面积267hm2及以上）为例的新型农业经营主体与传统农户小规模农地对农业技术服务需求行为运用二元Logistic模型进行实证分析。［结果］(1)家庭耕地面积是影响家庭农场对农业技术服务需求行为的主要因素； 而文化程度、是否参加农业合作社、村里是否有农业合作社是家庭农场对农业技术服务需求行为的影响程度最大的。(2)而参加农业技术培训次数是影响农户小规模农地对农业技术服务需求行为的主要因素； 是否参加农业技术培训是农户小规模农地对农业技术服务需求行为的影响程度最大的。［结论］（1）农业技术服供给机构应根据农户经营种植的耕地面积，对用户进行分类管理。（2）农业技术服务机构应协同基层部门加大对农业技术服务的宣传力度，全面提升种植农户的认知程度。（3）培育新型农业经营主体，为农业技术服务培育不同规模需求的优良农户。     

The costs and benefits of land fragmentation of rice farms in Japan*

Land fragmentation, in which a farm operates multiple, separate plots of land, is a common phenomenon in Japan and many other countries. Usually, land fragmentation is regarded as a harmful phenomenon as it increases production costs and reduces the advantages of scale economies. However, it is also known that fragmentation may have beneficial effects in reducing risk through spatial dispersion of plots. Thus, land fragmentation has both costs and benefits, and whether it is beneficial or harmful is determined by the magnitude of these costs and benefits. This article investigates the costs and benefits of land fragmentation empirically using panel data from Japanese rice farms. The empirical results reveal that fragmentation increases production costs and offsets economies of size, and these impacts strengthen as farm size increases. Moreover, although fragmentation does reduce production risk, its monetary value is far below the cost of land fragmentation. From these findings, we conclude that land fragmentation is an impediment to efficient rice production in Japan.     

Reducing land fragmentation to curb cropland abandonment: Evidence from rural China

Reducing land fragmentation can theoretically curb cropland abandonment, thus ensuring food security. However, few studies have quantified this relationship using large-scale survey data at the household level. This study adopts a two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) model to examine the effect of land fragmentation on cropland abandonment using nationally representative panel data from the China Rural Household Panel Survey (CRHPS). The panel data set contains 15,138 households across 29 provinces in 2017 and 2019. We find that land fragmentation has a significant and positive relationship with cropland abandonment. The mechanism analysis reveals that this relationship is due to high labor costs and difficulties in renting out the fragmented land. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that farmers with poor human capital and those living in non-plain areas are at a higher risk of abandoning their cropland due to land fragmentation. Furthermore, the association between land fragmentation and cropland abandonment tends to vary across different land rent-in scenarios. For instance, an increase in the number of plots in the case of land rent-in is not necessarily associated with cropland abandonment. These findings are conducive to correcting the underestimation of the role of land fragmentation in cropland abandonment, and their implications may be extended to various countries.     

浅析如何提升农业科研院所人事档案管理效能

[目的]家庭农场是实现农业现代化的重要主体,进一步研究粮食类家庭农场培育的影响因素并提出培育对策和建议,对于确保粮食安全和实现农民增收具有重要意义.[方法]文章以山东省齐河县、肥城市、寿光市、安丘市、即墨市、莱州市的粮食类家庭农场为研究对象,进行问卷调研,然后运用描述统计、均值分析、因子分析和回归分析等方法,分析粮食类家庭农场的经营现状及其成立和经营的影响因素.[结果]分别对应家庭农场成立和家庭农场经营等2个因变量,运用SPSS19.0软件进行线性回归分析,分析结果P值均为0.000,说明模型能够有效反映影响因素对家庭农场的成立存在显著的影响,有效反映影响因素对家庭农场的经营存在显著的影响;Durbin-Watson值分别为2.292、2.156,均介于1~3之间,说明回归模型残差独立,回归模型有效.[结论](1)社会化服务已经不再是培育家庭农场的障碍,农场主可以容易地获得生产资料、生产技术、生产过程服务,从劳务市场雇佣劳动者以及将农产品销售出去;(2)农场主和劳动雇工、资金及土地是培育家庭农场的主要影响因素;(3)产业带动对家庭农场的培育影响不显著;(4)基础设施对家庭农场的成立存在一定影响.     

乡村内生型农机服务市场形成机理及其运行机制研究

大国小农是我国的基本农情.未来相当一段时间,小规模兼业农户仍将是我国农业经营的主要微观主体.内生型农机服务市场能够有效连接小农户与农机服务提供者,有助于解决因土地细碎化而产生的高交易成本问题,为此,本文重点揭示了内生型农机服务市场的形成机理,设计了其运行机制.研究发现,小农户分散且多元的农机服务需求是内生型农机服务市场...     

How Do Health and Social Insurance Programmes Affect the Land and Labour Allocations of Farm Households? Evidence from Taiwan

To protect farmers from health care costs and risks to livelihood, most countries have developed special health and social insurance programmes specifically for farmers. While numerous studies have examined the determinants of participation in these programmes, little is known about how they influence famers' land and labour allocations. Without government‐sponsored health and social insurance, farmers may seek off‐farm employment in order to obtain similar benefits. Conditioning eligibility for social insurance on minimum land holdings and on‐farm work days can lead to delayed retirement and other forms of job lock. We investigate these issues using a unique dataset of 703,287 farms in Taiwan. After controlling for non‐random participation in Taiwan's social insurance programme, we find that the programme increases (decreases) on (off) farm labour supply, and decreases the amount of set‐aside land. This suggests that payments from social insurance substitute for those issued through land set‐aside programmes to some extent, and that failing to account for this substitution increases the cost of achieving both programmes' objectives.     

The firm size,farm size,and transaction costs: the case of hazelnut farms in Turkey

This study analyzes the effects of transaction costs on the size of hazelnut farms in Turkey. The study finds that higher land slope and higher variance of rain, as transaction‐cost‐increasing natural effects, lead to smaller hazelnut land holdings. High slope and weather variation can increase the costs of monitoring the laborers, make moving inputs or output up and down harder, limit the use of machinery, and reduce contractual performance of labor contracts. For farm production functions, land is a complex input with measurable interactions with nature. Contrary to common production theory approaches that take natural properties of land as given, the study develops a production function that incorporates natural properties, such as, slope and rain variance. The study utilizes two separate data sets for the estimations. The first data set explores the characteristics of hazelnut farmers, while the second one analyzes the regional characteristics of hazelnut farms.     

Restructuring of traditional farms and new land relations in Ukraine

This paper reports the results of a 1993/1994 survey of 2500 farm managers, farm employees, and private farmers in Ukraine, highlighting changes at the farm level in response to programs of land reform and farm restructuring. As of early 1994, Ukrainian reform had moved to the first stage, which involves privatization of much of the agricultural land and creation of shareholding farms. Over 60% of agricultural land in Ukraine has been transferred from state to collective ownership; among the collective and state farms surveyed, nearly 75% have reorganized and most of them have allocated land and asset shares to members. The number of independent private farmers in Ukraine exceeds 30 000, but with an average farm size of 20 ha they cultivate less than 2% of farmland. Reform at the farm level in Ukraine has thus begun, but at present is at a very early stage.     

东北地区粮食型农户家庭农场经营风险认知的影响因素分析

［目的］东北地区作为维护国家粮食安全的“压舱石”，准确而系统地掌握东北地区粮食型农户家庭农场经营风险认知水平，为政府部门精准实施粮食型农户家庭农场配套扶持政策提供参考。［方法］文章利用黑龙江、吉林、辽宁3省301个粮食型农户家庭农场调研数据，运用交叉列表和多元有序logit模型分析家庭农场经营风险认知水平及其影响因素。［结果］（1）6312%的粮食型家庭农场有一定风险认知能力，土地经营面积在333~1333hm2（50~200亩）与1333~3333hm2（200~500亩）的家庭农场风险认知处于中等水平， 3333hm2（500亩）以上家庭农场经营风险认知低； （2）玉米种植型家庭农场风险认知水平高于水稻种植型家庭农场； （3）年龄、是否村干部、劳动力数量、土地经营规模、是否有自然灾害、农产品市场价格波动、是否“三品一标”认证、金融支持、农推人员技术指导和新型经营主体间合作稳定对东北地区粮食型农户家庭农场经营风险认知有影响。［结论］应培养家庭农场主个人特质，鼓励支农惠农政策向规模适度的家庭农场倾斜，从流程入手提高家庭农场风险防范能力。     

The economics of land fragmentation in the north of Vietnam*

Land fragmentation, where a single farm has a number of parcels of land, is a common feature of agriculture in many countries, especially in developing countries. In Vietnam, land fragmentation is common, especially in the north. For the whole country, there are about 75 million parcels of land, an average of seven to eight plots per farm household. Such fragmentation can be seen to have negative and positive benefits for farm households and the community generally. Comparative statics analysis and analysis of survey data have led to the conclusion that small‐sized farms are likely to be more fragmented, and that fragmentation had a negative impact on crop productivity and increased family labour use and other money expenses. Policies which allow the appropriate opportunity cost of labour to be reflected at the farm level may provide appropriate incentives to trigger farm size change and land consolidation. Policies which tip the benefits in favour of fewer and larger plots, such as strong and effective research and development, an active extension system and strong administrative management, may also lead to land consolidation.     

Determinants of Smallholders’ Decisions to Leave Land Fallow: The Case of Kosovo

This article investigates why farmers in Kosovo leave land fallow when their farms’ total land area is small and households, almost fully dependent on farming for their livelihoods, are large. It uses a comprehensive survey carried out during the agricultural year 2005/2006 to explore agricultural households’ perceptions of production, market conditions and general security 6 years after the end of the military conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Several locational, household and farm characteristics empirically approximate the significance of different factors for the amount of land left idle. Two different econometric models are used to address the characteristics of the dependent variable distribution by accounting for endogeneity. The main determinants of the share of land left fallow are found to be related to the economic and institutional structure, and to the general feeling of insecurity.     

The trade-offs between economic efficiency and job creation in olive grove smallholdings

Cooperation among farmers is an effective alternative to reduce production costs in smallholdings of traditional olive groves and increase their low profitability. However, an increase in efficiency reduces working hours and the labour required for the management of farms. This fact can lead to negative effects in rural areas, especially considering the importance of the social aspect of the crop. Therefore, to contribute to the global discussion on the transition towards more sustainable farming, it is important to know, ex ante, what level of employment is generated by olive groves and what could be lost under more competitive and efficient scenarios. The purpose of the work is to quantify the expected impact on employment by the implementation of cooperative management methods in order to generate true and accurate information that can be used in the design of future policies that aim to increase the economic profitability of small olive farms. The results make clear that this way of managing farms, by increasing the efficiency of agricultural work, has a significant negative impact on employment. However, this management formula does encourage the professionalisation of the sector by generating quality employment, in addition to contributing to the preservation of small farms and the socio-cultural and territorial benefits they generate.     

Tare land in Flemish horticulture

The annual agricultural census in Belgium delivers quantitative data of net and additional areas of land used for agriculture and horticulture. We introduce the term ‘tare land’ to indicate the latter as the area of land fragments not directly supporting crops or fodder, at farm level or at higher (landscape, region) level. For spatial planning and zoning purposes data on gross agricultural area (being the sum of net and tare areas) are required. However, the quality of the tare data is not documented or even questioned. In Belgian and international scientific and grey literature, little information on tare is available. In this paper we define two classes of tare, functional tare (fTare) and plan tare (pTare). fTare encompasses the sum of the area of all additional land used by farmers for professional purpose or closely associated to the net agricultural area but not directly used for the production of food, fodder or industrial crops. Plan tare (pTare) is defined as these parts of the statutory agricultural area not specifically used in farming, such as public roads and inclusions of non-farming buildings. By means of a GPS-survey and interviews with farm managers, we used two methods to survey net and tare areas of land. On one hand we surveyed the land within farm enterprises: 3 open air horticultural farms, 6 greenhouse horticultural farms and one mixed farm (open air horticulture and greenhouse). On the other hand we surveyed 10 segments of 25 ha, all situated in one municipality within a major horticultural region of Flanders (northern region of Belgium). fTare areas account on average for 21% of the total farm area in the case of open air horticulture whereas the fTare area is 39% in case of greenhouse horticultural farms. These averages are significantly different. The mixed farm had an fTare area of 32%. Within areas designated for agriculture plan tare is 44%. Hence only 56% of the land with an agricultural destination is effectively used for agriculture. These figures illustrate the spatial importance of tare areas and the spatially extremely scattered organisation of horticulture in the study area. Knowledge on quality and nature of tare areas is important for multi-objective spatial planning in which economic and ecological sustainability of agriculture is considered.     

The land cost of agrarian sustainability. An assessment

Improving the sustainability of farms often incurs additional costs for farmers. These costs come from allocating land to the maintenance of the ecological processes (energy and material flows, natural population regulation) required for the agroecosystem to function. Since these costs are not recovered on the markets, farmers see a fall in profits, the financial viability of their farms is compromised, and they suffer the consequences of the environmental services they are providing. All this makes it essential to implement government policies designed to compensate farmers for their efforts. The issue of how to assess sustainability has generated widespread debate within ecological economics, specifically as to whether it is possible to place a monetary value on it and if so, how this should be done. In a previous article we showed that agrarian sustainability involves a land cost, therefore this cost can be translated into monetary values. The purpose of this study is to develop this concept in practical terms by applying it to organic farming. We calculated the land cost of agrarian sustainability (LACAS) in order to compare organic versus conventional management in olive farming, as this crop is grown extensively in Spain and other Mediterranean countries. The results show that the agro-environmental subsidy is not enough to encourage olive growers to make the conversion from conventional to organic methods, because the land cost of sustainability is not adequately offset. They also show that improving agroecosystems can allow the land to take on more functions without increasing the land cost. In our case, encouraging the multifunctionality of the land has permitted a reduction in this cost. The LACAS could be a useful tool, not only for drawing up government policies designed to support organic farming, but also for improving the sustainability of the agrarian sector.