In the Czech Republic, only eighteen percent of the land area is cultivated by farmers who own it. While we can see a dense web of plots of land in the maps, the view of the real landscape offers huge consolidated fields. This trend, which was examined by scientists from the CZU and named by the term “farmland rental paradox”, has subsequent impacts on the landscape and soil quality as such. According to the newly published study, a problematic trend is that the lands are becoming more and more split and with their decreasing area, they often come below the break-even point. The ownership relations are adversely affected by the right of inheritance. The owners are then forced to rent their little fields. Although it brings at first glance only administrative difficulties to the users of the land, it turns out that the renting of land from a large number of small owners leads in its consequences to homogenization of the landscape and to soil degradation.
Contact
prof. Ing. Petr Sklenička, CSc.
http://home.czu.cz/sklenicka/
Land Use Policy
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy