Land Fragmentation and Rice Production : a Case Study of Small Farms in Jiangxi Province, P.R. China

Agricultural landholdings in China have an average size of only 0.53 hectares and are divided over six different plots on average. This very high degree of land fragmentation is likely to impose important constraints to current government policies aimed at supporting the incomes of rural households, raising domestic grain production, and promoting the overall production capacity of agricultural sector in order to meet the challenges posed by foreign competition. The purpose of this study is to examine the causes of this extremely high degree of land fragmentation and its consequences for food production in China. The analysis focuses in particular on rice smallholders in Jiangxi Province, a major rice production base of China