Land consolidation in mountain areas. Case study from southern Poland

Abstract

Land consolidation procedures are an attempt to comprehensively change the existing spatial structure of land in rural areas. This treatment also brings many other social and economic benefi ts, contributing to the development of consolidated areas. Land consolidation in mountain areas differs in many respects from those implemented in areas with more favorable conditions for the functioning of agriculture. The unfavorable values of land fragmentation indices, terrain conditions and lower than the average soil quality affect both the dominant forms of agricultural activity and the limited opportunities to improve the distribution of plots in space, parameters of shape, and the area as a result of land consolidation. For this reason, the effectiveness of land consolidation in mountain areas can be achieved by improving the quality of transportation network and the accessibility of the plots, arranging ownership issues and improving the quality of cadastral documentation. This article presents the evaluation of the measures of effectiveness of land consolidation realized in mountain areas on the example of Łetownia Village in the Małopolska Province, located in the southern part of Poland. Selected village is an area with unfavorable conditions for the functioning of agriculture and high values of land fragmentation indices.

Farmland Fragmentation, Farmland Consolidation and Food Security: Relationships, Research Lapses and Future Perspectives

“…Van der Molen et al [20] argue that land consolidation also called concentration [39] as an ambivalent concept (instrument and principle) following different principles (parcel reallocation and improvement of physical conditions) has a common objective of making the parceling of one farm more compact (few contiguous parcels close to the homestead) and the farming structure in a given region denser (few farms per land block with higher average farm size), in order to create more operational and viable farm units. In this context, it is theoretically and commonly understood as a process of making the parceling of one farm or a farming structure of any region more compact with few parcels per farm or land block, and higher average parcel and farm sizes respectively [4,16,18,20,108,109]. FAO [4] advances that any modern land consolidation should follow the following principles:…”

“…In this vein, different land consolidation forms (approaches) have been developed over time. The most commonly known include the comprehensive, simplified, voluntary, individual, government-led, private company-dominated, and farmland use consolidation among others [4,16,23,99,108,112,113] as described below:…”

“…Similarly, Van Dijk [18], Hartvigsen [19], Asiama et al [28], and Asiama et al [17] argue in their respective studies on Central and Eastern Europe and Ghana, that the economic value of land should exceed its social value (perfect land market leading to high land mobility) as a key precondition for success of land consolidation programs. In this regard, various researchers have highlighted and documented the general baseline conditions which need to be considered before the development of any specific land consolidation approach in an area [4,12,18,19,28,30,107,108,[124][125][126][127]. These include:…”

“…Furthermore, the hilly and mountainous areas with sharp variations in surface characteristics hinder the creation of regular shapes and infrastructures as land boundaries may naturally follow the physical characteristics of the terrain like hill tops or valleys [12,13,28,40,107]. King and Burton [97], Bentley [30], and Janus et al [108] argue that due to the sharp variations in soil quality, and agroecological conditions in mountainous and hilly lands, the costs of consolidation may exceed its benefits, which dictates the development of different consolidation approaches rather than focusing on economic profitability, or keeping fragmentation in such areas. Prior to the development of any land consolidation approach, one needs to consider its anticipated effects on the environment, since previous experience has shown that large comprehensive consolidation projects have led to the loss of biodiversity.…”

“…Hence, there is no standard objective strategy or measure to control this phenomenon, nor is there a successful transfer of specific strategies in different areas with different characteristics [12,[19][20][21]28,127]. This makes it difficult to objectively compare and assess the effectiveness of these strategies [108]. The empirical evidence revealed that the failure to consider the local conditions prior to the transplantation of land consolidation programs has previously led to their failure in some African (Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania) and Asian countries dominated by customary and communal land tenure systems [12,18,21,29].…”