Concentración de tierras
*This data analsyis is still under construction
Description:
The Degree of Land Concentration refers to the structural repartition of agricultural holdings within a given territory, reflecting the extent of farmland controlled by small or large agricultural holdings. This indicator is here expressed as i) the percentage of land controlled by small-scale farmers and; ii) the Gini Coefficient for land distribution.
Rationale:
Land concentration is one of the primary manifestations of inequalities in the rural areas. The unequal distribution of land is an indicator used to assess the extent of the access to natural resources by the population.
Highly unequal patterns of land distribution reflect a process of failure to distribute evenly the access to means of production within the population. On a general basis, high levels of land concentration are associated with increased social inequalities, rural poverty and exodus, and skewed development policies towards large-scale export model. Similarly, a decrease in the land concentration is usually indicative of improvements in overall socioeconomic conditions of a country.
Method of measurement:
The measurement of “small-scale” in the European context was standardized to holdings less than 10 hectares. It was achieved by aggregating the data for the following number of total agricultural holdings: Less than 2 ha; from 2 to 4.9 ha; from 5 to 9.9 ha. The agricultural size of holdings is expressed in Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA). The total figures for holding <10 hectares exclude holdings less than 0 hectares, which are statistically insignificant.
The measurement of “small-scale” in the international data set is country specific and varies according to the various contexts, either in hectares – ranging from <1ha to <162ha – or in income threshold.
The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality on scale of 0 to 1. A Zero coefficient means that, in the case of farmland distribution, all agricultural holdings hold the same amount of farmland. A coefficient of 1 means that a single agricultural holding holds all the farmland. Gini coefficient for the distribution of agricultural land for EU country has been elaborated with the following formula:
The Gini coefficient for the distribution of agricultural land for non-EU country has been extracted from secondary-data sources (see below).
Data collection and sources
European secondary data sources from Eurostat’s data explorer, the statistic office of the European Union. Statistics on structure of agricultural holdings are accessible via the following link http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=ef_kvaareg&lang=en.
International secondary data sources from Civil Society Organisations presenting the degree of land concentration and Gini coefficient across the various continents. The 2014 report can be found at the following link: https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland. International secondary data sources have some limitations as sources of monitoring data (see below).
Disaggregation
The European data can be disaggregated by the size of agricultural holdings along the following categories – Less than 2 ha; from 2 to 4.9 ha; from 5 to 9.9 ha; from 10 to 19.9 ha; from 20 to 29.9 ha; from 30 to 49.9 ha; from 50 to 99.9 ha; 100 ha or over – as well per region within a given country. This disaggregation facilitates detecting the various degrees of concentration from different localities in the country.
The International data cannot be disaggregated.
Periodicity
The reported data normally refer to a specific year. The frequency of land census differs highly from one country to the other. Thus, in reporting historical monitoring data attempting a comparative analysis, care should be taken to note the actual year that the data were obtained.
Analytical Approaches:
The analytical approach should be designed to monitor the overall and severe stunting rates, and to assess changes over time in the inequality of land distribution, to the extent that the available date allow.
Comments and Limitations
The percentage of agricultural land in hands of smallholdings, the small agricultural holdings as percentage of all farms, and the Gini coefficient are one way among several to approach the measurement of land concentration – and where chosen for their universal availability. For example, a complementary relevant data would be the extent of farmland controlled by large agricultural holdings. This information is only known in the European context.
There are no universally agreed upon definition of “small-scale” agricultural holding. The data used for the indicator is based upon multiple methodologies: objective and absolute (below a certain size, which can vary greatly, or income) or subjective and relative. Comparative analysis should be informed and cautious.
Due to the very political nature of the information provided by surveys in land distribution, as well as the financial costs in conducting such surveys, many countries do not offer up to date information. With the exception of EU-countries, for which the data is less than 5 years old, the data for non-EU countries – especially for the Gini coefficient – is up to few decades old. This is one of the major set back of this indicator, in the extent it does not provide a snapshot of the current situation of land ownership.
This indicator relies on secondary data, which are themselves subject to changes in the methodologies applied by the various state agencies in charge of collecting the statistics. Statistical adjustments on the measuring of agricultural holdings excluding holding below 1 or 2 ha can lead to a manipulation of numbers creating the evidence base supporting some policy analysis over others. The statistical reduction from adjustment excludes small agricultural holdings, meaning that the extent of farmland concentration might be greater. On the other hand percentage of land controlled by small-scale farmers might in reality slightly higher in some cases (e.g. for Germany).