| Abstract: | Land farmland fragmentation has been a continuous phenomenon and could
be a major cause for total natural resources loss within short period unless
the government makes change in agricultural policy .The Ethiopian Rural
Development Policy which focuses on land tenure and assumes that
achieving rapid development in other sectors serves as a remedy to the
problem of land fragmentation. However, available empirical evidence
shows that the Strategy has brought no measurable and acceptable changes
in solving the problem of fragmentation. The existence of ever growing
difficulty in managing scattered parcel of plots and its impacts on the
households’ food crop production and the quality of the life of the
smallholders. This paper thus discussed the findings of the study on the
impacts of farmland fragmentation on productivity of crops in four villages
of Seru District in Southeast Ethiopia. The study revealed that the social and
economic problems induced by farmland fragmentation are diverse and
significant in income reduction of the cereal crop producers. The mean adult
labors are 4.22 and mean landholding is 2.30 hectares and the ratio of land
to adult labor is 0.46 hectare. Nevertheless, trend analysis and forecast
based on the number of heirs to the present landholders showed that
fragmentation due to inheritance had reduced the current labor to land ratio
down to 0.13 for hectare in the next generation, assuming that the level of
the efforts needed to detaching the surplus rural labor force from direct
farming business are continued at the present level. The output elasticity
estimates showed that farm fragmentation had influenced the productivity of
crops and croplands negatively. For example, a 10% increase in farm size,
cash capital used, expenses for all inputs, labor inputs, average parcel size
and in application of manure was found to increase income of the
households by 1.05%, 0.69%, 0.35%, 0.32%, 0.12%, and by 0.012%
respectively. In addition, a 10% increase in the distance of plots and a 10%
increase in the level of fragmentation are found to decrease farm income by
0.05% and 0.14% respectively. Border conflict is also found to be rampant;land lose due to border marking is observable, transportation of inputs and
outputs and provision of care and supervision affect yield; and damage by
domestic and wild animals and theft by human were found to be the major
problems in the management of spatially fragmented plots. |
