On the mean size of land units

Abstract

The size of farms, fields, cadastral parcels and other territories (generally land units) is a common indicator to describe them. The mean size of land units is used for different purposes, for example for comparison of different regions. However, the same mean size of land units can be the result of different initial data. The mean size of two land units is 10 hectares in both cases: 19+1 hectare or 11+9 hectare. The disadvantages of mean size are criticised also in literature. In this paper, the area weighted mean size as indicator to describe the holdings land use conditions are presented. The study aim is to show the difference between mean size and area weighted mean size of land units of the holdings The difference between mean size and area weighted mean size of land units is shown on the basis of formal calculations. Then the difference between mean size and area weighted mean size of land units is analysed by empirical data. The formal calculations showed that the difference between mean size and area weighted mean size of land units of the holding depends on the variability of land units' size. The results of the empirical study showed that mean size and area weighted mean size of land units for one holding can differ more than three times while in some cases this difference is small. Finally, the recommendation to use the area weighted mean size for characterisation of land use conditions of land holdings has been made.

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“…Researchers who have studied similar problems point out that the fragmentation of agricultural land in Central Europe is very high, which hinders the emergence of private commercial farms (Dijk, 2003). In addition, the fragmentation of land parcels prevents the creation of larger land parcels (Demetriou et al, 2012;Maasikamäe et al, 2015). Since changes in the shape and area of land parcels determine the cost of production, and the number of parcels and their fragmentation affect the cost of transporting the produce, it has been proposed to optimize these parameters (Alvarez et al, 2007).…”