Impacts and causes of land fragmentation, and lessons learned from land consolidation in South Asia

Landholdings and land parcels in South Asia are undergoing fragmentation, thereby accelerating the pace of their degradation and constraining agricultural development. Based on experiences gained in the region and elsewhere, this paper finds the fragmentation of small landholdings and tiny land parcels detrimental to land conservation and economic gain, thereby discouraging farmers from adoption of agricultural innovations. Primarily induced by the dependency of the major proportion of ever growing population on agriculture, the process of land fragmentation has been reinforced by the law of inheritance of paternal property, lack of progressive tax on inherited land, heterogeneous land quality and an underdeveloped land market. South Asian countries have had adopted policies and legal measures for facilitating land consolidation. However, desirable results were not achieved, as such interventions could not address structural causes of the problem. Broad policy and legal measures have been outlined for facilitating land consolidation in a sustainable way.