1. The World Bank Land and Poverty Conference is glad to welcome poster session presenters. You have been selected by the land conference team to present your poster to an interested audience at the conference.
The posters will be on display at the Atrium of the World Bank main building on the whole Tuesday March 21 and Wednesday March 22.
There will also be a prize awarded by the conference organizers to the best rated poster.
Please view the instructions on the conference website on how to upload poster in your Conftool account. The deadline for submitting your poster is 11:59 PM on February 22, 2017 (Eastern Standard Time).
The size requirements for posters are as follows:
Size A1 vertical: 841 x 594 mm (height x width) or 33.1 x 23.4 inches (height x width)
Please consult the following formatting template below when preparing your poster.

2. Farmland Distribution and Rural Transformation in Developing Regions
Sarah K Lowder* and Raffaele Bertini**
*Independent consultant/ Adjunct faculty at Georgetown University
** The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
and
Introduction
In order to better understand rural transformation, it is instructive to consider how average farms size and farmland distribution have changed over time.
We reviewed the literature on changes in farmland distribution, providing an assessment of recent claims that the growth of mid-size farms may now be a trend in Sub-Saharan Africa. We provide an update of trends in average size and distribution of farm holdings, considering the time period , incorporating reports from the 2010 round of the agricultural census. We also consider the distribution of farms and farmland area by land size classes.
Results
Literature shows that since 1960 average farm sizes have mostly increased in the developed world and decreased in the developing world. Some evidence suggests recent increases in average farm size in parts of Africa (Jayne et al, 2016) as well as in China (Tan et al, 2013).
In terms of the evolution of average farm sizes, our findings confirm decreased average farm size in low- and middle-income countries and an increase for high-income countries over most of the period 1960 – 2010 (Figure 1). We do find some evidence that in recent years (from the 2000 to 2010 round), average farm size has decreased little for South Asia as a whole. In recent years (2000 to 2010) average farm size increased for the low-income country group as well as in many of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa for which we have observations. The share of farmland controlled by larger farms is higher in countries with larger average incomes (Figure 2). Smaller farms operate a far greater share of farmland in lower income regions than in higher income countries. This suggests that farms consolidate as economies develop.
Figure 1: Average farm size over time, by region
Note: HI (high-income countries); LAC (Latin America & the Caribbean); EAP (East Asia & the Pacific); MENA (Middle East & North Africa); SA (South Asia) & SSA (Sub-Saharan Africa). World Bank FY 2012 country classification system used.
Figure 2: Average distribution of farms & farmland by farm size classes & income group
Materials and methods
Our literature review covers the period 2010 – 2016 and work that considers changes in farmland distribution, average or median farm size over time.
Data used are from FAO’s programme for the World Census of Agriculture (FAO, 2001; FAO, 2013 and FAO, 2016). The Agricultural holdings and area reported include crop and livestock production only. Communal lands are generally not included. The agricultural holder is the person who makes strategic decisions regarding use of the farm resources and who bears all risks associated with the farm. Some agricultural censuses survey household farms rather than all farms. This is true, for instance, in the 2010 round for many African countries, including Ethiopia, Malawi and Rwanda (Lowder, Skoet and Raney, 2016)
Conclusions
Farmland distribution suggests that as countries’ income levels increase farm sizes will increase (Figure 2).
For most of the period average farm sizes have decreased in low- and middle-income countries and they have increased in high-income countries. In recent years some increase in average farm size has occurred in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and the decrease in average farm size in South Asia has slowed (Figure 1).
Efforts to survey all farms (as opposed to household farms only) should be scaled up.
Literature cited
Tan, M.; G.M. Robinson; X. Li and L. Xin.
2013. "Spatial and Temporal Variability of Farm Size in China in the Context of Rapid Urbanization." Chinese Geographical Science, 23(5),
FAO Supplement to the Report on the 1990 World Census of Agriculture. FAO Statistical Development Series 9a. Rome: FAO.
FAO World Census of Agriculture: Analysis and International Comparison of the Results. FAO Statistical Development Series 13.
FAO The State of Food and Agriculture Innovation in family farming. Rome, FAO.
FAO World Census of Agriculture 2010 round (2006 – 2015). Available at:
Jayne, T. S.; J. Chamberlin; L. Traub; N. Sitko;
M. Muyanga; F.K. Yeboah; W. Anseeuw; A. Chapoto; A. Wineman; C. Nkonde. 2016a. "Africa's Changing Farm Size Distribution Patterns: The Rise of Medium-Scale Farms."
Agricultural Economics, 47(S1),
Lowder, S.K.; J. Skoet and T. Raney "The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family Farms Worldwide." World Development, 87, .
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Agricultural & Development Economics division of FAO.