Spatial modifications should be introduced in areas where members of the local community actively participate in consolidation projects. Social acceptance is the key prerequisite for successful land consolidation. How should the sequence of land consolidation measures be planned in a rural area whose inhabitants have not expressed their opinions about the project? Are the existing criteria, which are applied to evaluate land consolidation measures mostly in agricultural regions, sufficient?

Two reduced-form, econometric models of developed land area were estimated with the data from the USDA’'s National Resource Inventory and numerous other sources for 49 states during 1982-1997. In these linear and semi-quadratic fixed-effects models, developed land area is smaller where the average real gas price or conservation- reserve-program payment per enrolled acre during the previous five years is higher. This area also decreases as the average share of lower-house Democrats or real per-capita agricultural and mining production during the previous five years grows.

Land fragmentation is a problem in Europe, and Estonia is not an exception in this respect. Parcel size is widespread characteristic to describe the level of fragmentation. The aim of the study is to find out if there is difference of fragmentation among different groups of landholdings by size. In order to characterise land fragmentation, were calculated the Januszewski and Schmook indexes, average parcel size and average distance from the gravity centre of each landholding to its parcels. Results showed a high level of fragmentation of Estonian agricultural landholdings.

The aim of this study was to compare the agricultural land market in Poland and in the selected countries of the European Union. The present paper compares the price changes of agricultural land in Poland and the EU. This research contains the information on institutions involved in agricultural land management in the selected EU countries. The paper presents the current state of the Polish market and its prospects for the land. Therefore, the development of the agricultural real estate market in Poland covers the years from 2004 to 2012.

Agricultural productivity measurement has been of great interest in recent years. Although analysts have long recognized that land quality plays an important role in agricultural productivity, land quality has been difficult to quantify and include in productivity models due to d ata limitations. Poor land quality, in the form of desertification, erosion, and poor soil quality, as well as climate and precipitation may limit growth in productivity over time.

Already during the Land Reform, land properties of several land parcels were formed in the rural areas. Another factor that benefits to the fragmentation of farm properties is development of land market because buying or renting land for farm size building, it is not always possible to find adjacent land plot. Consequently, the land fragmentation not only makes land management difficult, but also increases the transport costs. With this rural land tenure system, competitive and efficient agricultural production cannot be discussed, so a large part of rural areas remains untreated.

This study seeks to contribute to the development of procedures which provide useful information to decision-makers and affected people regarding the national income and employment impacts of railroad branch line abandonment. There are three major parts to this paper. The first part probes the underlying assumptions of public investment analysis. It is noted that non-Pareto optimal welfare changes occur whether or not abandonment takes place.

Land use policy unquestionably requires information about land ownership. During the Congressional debate on the Land Use Policy and Planning Assistance Act of 1972, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington recognized the need for land ownership information when he said: "Rational land use planning would be impossible without knowledge of patterns of land ownership within a given area." (1) Yet this information is not generally available for the planning process.

Important linkages between farm management variables, soil loss, crop yields, and incentives to practice soil conservation have often been omitted from previous empirical studies, due to regional data limitations and incomplete knowledge of soil loss/crop yiled relationships. An optimal control model is developed with explicit attention to interactions between management choices, soil loss, and long-term farmland productivity.

The role of agri-environmental programs has taken on increased importance in the current Farm Bill debate with an eighty percent increase in Title II funding. However, little empirical evidence exists on the tradeoffs between economic costs and environmental benefits of new agri-environmental programs to assist policymakers in their designs. This paper illustrates some of the budgetary and environmental issues inherent in these initiatives. Several policy options are explored using an environmental simulation model and an economic spatial-equilibrium model for U.S. agriculture.

This paper describes four innovative farmland preservation techniques and gauges support through interviews of key stakeholders: program administrators, lawmakers, and landowners. Four techniques were selected for assessment from approximately 30 novel techniques: rights of first refusal; term conservation easements; land preservation tontines; and agricultural conservation pension. Rights of first refusal was the most favored, although respondents thought effective implementation would need targeting of land and a dedicated funding source.

Alabama is experiencing significant pressure to convert agricultural land to urban uses. The dominant pattern of urbanization has been the conversion of agricultural land to residential and commercial uses. This paper examined regional, state, and local land use trends and developed a tool for identifying the determinants and impacts of past and proposed land use change in north Alabama using selected cities and towns in Madison County.