IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/agecon/v47y2016is1p185-196.html

The evolution of global farming land: facts and interpretations

Author

Listed:
  • Derek D. Headey

Abstract

Although land plays a crucially important role in economic development and structural transformation, the causes and consequences of the evolution of farming land have only been paid scant attention in recent decades. In this paper I document changes in the extent of global farming land and in average farm sizes. I show that the spatial distribution of global farming land has changed dramatically, with developed countries substantially reducing their share and landabundant developing countries substantially increasing their share. In per capita terms we see a rather different pattern, with average farm sizes increasing rich and more commercialized agricultural systems, and generally declining or staying constant in poorer and less commercialized systems. These outcomes are the result of complex processes that are not always well understood. I conclude the paper by suggesting new, or neglected, areas of research that would help us better understand these critically important developments.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Derek D. Headey, 2016. "The evolution of global farming land: facts and interpretations," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(S1), pages 185-196, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:47:y:2016:i:s1:p:185-196
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/agec.2016.47.issue-S1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Veronique Beckers & Jeroen Beckers & Matthias Vanmaercke & Etienne Van Hecke & Anton Van Rompaey & Nicolas Dendoncker, 2018. "Modelling Farm Growth and Its Impact on Agricultural Land Use: A Country Scale Application of an Agent-Based Model," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Fukase, Emiko & Martin, Will, 2020. "Economic growth, convergence, and world food demand and supply," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    3. Jayne, Thomas S. & Chamberlin, Jordan & Sitko, Nicholas & Muyanga, Milu & Yeboah, Felix K. & Nkonde, Chewe & Aneeuw, Ward & Traub, Lulama & Chapoto, A. & Kachule, Richard, "undated". "Africa’S Changing Farmland Ownership: The Rise Of The Emergent Investor Farmer," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 259048, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    4. Adelaja, Adesoji & George, Justin, 2019. "Terrorism and land use in agriculture: The case of Boko Haram in Nigeria," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 2017. "On food security and the economic valuation of food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 58-67.
    6. Cloete, Kandas & Möhring, Anke & Zantsi, Siphe, 2023. "Modelling the exiting of South African producers from commercial agricultural production – an agent-based model," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 62(3-4), December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:47:y:2016:i:s1:p:185-196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.