Indicators in the study sites

Table of Contents

1. Compilers and contributors
2. Introduction
3. Climate indicators
4. Water indicators
5. Soil indicators
6. Vegetation indicators
7. Water runoff indicators
8. Forest fires indicators
9. Agriculture indicators
   1. Farm ownership
   2. Farm size
   3. Land fragmentation
   4. Net farm income
   5. Parallel employment
10. Cultivation indicators
11. Animal husbandry indicators
12. Land management indicators
13. Land use indicators
14. Water use indicators
15. Tourism indicators
16. Human characteristics indicators
17. Institutional indicators
18. Conclusions
19. References

Farm size

Farm size generally affects land management practices and organization of farm activities. Large farm size can have an impact on the shape of the farm such as uniform fields with less boundary features and isolated trees, as well as on the degree of intensification of operations as capital replaces labor which enables farmers to produce higher output from the land. The tendency toward greater concentration in production usually leads farmers to the replacement of mixed farming by more specific and uniform production such as livestock or arable based farms, etc. Studies conducted in the island of Lesvos (Greece) have shown that land use change has been affected by farm size. Land use change has occurred when farm size was greater than 10 hectares. In smaller farm sizes changes in land use were not so often.

Farm size is defined as the ratio between the number of farms belonging to the size classes less than 2 hectares and the number of farms belonging to the size classes more than 50 hectares. The farm size was identified after contacting the land user. This indicator contributes to the definition of the agricultural structure of the area affected by desertification. The following classes have been used in this project: less than 2 ha, 2-5 ha, 5-10 ha, 10-20 ha, 20-30 ha, 30-50 ha, 50-100 ha, and >100 ha.

As Table 7 shows, data on farm size has been collected in 972 study field sites, corresponding to 12 study sites. The dominant classes of farm size identified in the study field sites were less than 2 hectares and 10-30 hectres (Fig. 51), covering 22.2% and 22.3% of the total fields, respectively. Such farm sizes have been mainly found in the study sites of Santiago Island-Cape Verde, Mamora Sehoul-Morocco, Zeuss Koutine-Tunisia, Konya Karapinar plain-Turkey, Eskisehir-Turkey, and Crete-Greece. The next important classes of farm size were 2-5 and 30-50 ha, covering about the same percentage of the study field sites or 20.7% and 15.9%, respectively. Such farm sizes have been identified in the study sites of Secano Interior-Chile, Santiago Island-Cape Verde, Mamora Sehoul-Morocco, Zeuss Koutine-Tunisia, Guadalentin Basin Murcia-Spain, Novij Saratov-Russia, and Crete-Greece. Farm size classes 50-100 ha and >100 ha have been found in 1.7% and 13.1% of the study field sites, respectively, corresponding mainly in the study sites of Secano Interior-Chile, Boteti Area-Botswana, Mamora Sehoul-Morocco, and Djanybek-Russia. Farm sizes of 5-10 ha have been found in few cases (4.0% of the study field sites), corresponding to study sites of Secano Interior-Chile, Mamora Sehoul-Morocco, and Crete-Greece. In conclusion large field (>100 ha) sizes have been identified mainly in Djanybek-Russia and Secano Interior-Chile, and small farm sizes (<2 ha) mainly in Santiago Island-Cape Verde, Zeuss Koutine-Tunisia, and Crete-Greece.

Fig. 51. Distribution of farm sizes classes defined in the study field sites