Assessment of land fragmentation of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine
Assessment of land fragmentation of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine

Summary/Abstract: Introduction. Agriculture is one of the leading sectors of the Ukrainian economy, however it still remains underdeveloped. The latest analysis shows an increasing number of farms with agricultural land over 10,000 ha. Nevertheless, family farms with an average size of 0.9 ha comprise 44.7% in the structure of gross agricultural production in Ukraine. Despite this fact, they occupy twice as less of arable land than agricultural enterprises and farms. Ukrainian scientists believe that the main reason why such a situation is observed is the fragmentation of agricultural land. The purpose of this paper is to identify some metric indicators for the assessment of land fragmentation of agricultural enterprises and analyse how land fragmentation prevents agricultural enterprises from using agricultural land. Results. Conducted analysis has shown that the dispersion, the edge density, the number of land owners and land parcels, the small size and the shape of land parcels are not associated with the problem related to land fragmentation. It has been found out that the fragmentation of land ownership and the fragmentation of land use exists only in theory and in legal documents. Moreover, the internal agricultural land fragmentation does not represent a major problem for agricultural enterprises. Conclusions. Land fragmentation is not a major problem for agricultural enterprises due to the excessive lease of agricultural land and virtual boundaries of land parcels (land ownership), projected field roads and projected shelterbelts. Nowadays, the main problem related to the use of agricultural land is the discrepancy between land ownership and land use.

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