Problem

Uneconomical small farms

Other Names:
Uneconomic size of farms
Small farm plots
Uneconomic small plots
Overdivided farmland plots
Narrow platted lots
Small narrow plots
Small land plots
Nature:

In many countries, individual family farms are very small and cannot provide a decent standard of living for their owners. Smallholders with limited education and economic understanding still pursue the traditional system of land utilization. Primitive agricultural practices and over-grazing of pastures further contribute to the deterioration of the soil.

Further, the small peasants and the tenants with uneconomic-sized holdings have perforce to work on the big farmer's holdings and thus have to compete with the landless labourer for the limited employment opportunities. The medium-sized farmers have justifiably tried to take land on tenancy from other farmers in order to increase the size of their holdings to make them more viable; this has, however, meant competition between the (small) pure tenant and the medium-sized owner-cultivator.

Incidence:

More than a million small Polish farms (less than 7 hectares) are threatened by the coming entry of Poland to the European Union, which favors large conventional farms and methods which are harmful to health and the environment, the traditional landscape and biodiversity, and which would uproot small farmers and create further unemployment, migration to unhealthy, overcrowded cities, and destruction of the rural culture and way of life.

[Developing countries] The substantial rise in the number of smallholders in many developing countries is a result of many diverse factors, such as growing population pressures, slowdown in the growth rate of industrialization, acquisition of land by the big owner-cultivators, acquisition of land by urban resident investors and subdivision and fragmentation of land due to the laws of inheritance.

 

Reduced By:
Intensive farming
Related UN Sustainable Development Goals:
GOAL 2: Zero HungerGOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic GrowthGOAL 15: Life on Land
Problem Type:
E: Emanations of other problems
Date of last update
16.10.2021 – 10:48 CEST