Sociology and Space, No. 17, 1967.
Review article
Problems of Spatial Organization of Land Cultivation
Adolf Malić
Abstract
Till now a very little attention was given to spatial organization of land cultivation.
A large part of agricultural land have been cultivated by small individual peasant
holdings, concentrated mostly into gathered rural settlements. Their landed property is
split into many small parcels.
The most important period for the development of the contemporary forms of
spatial organization of cultivation of rural fields started in Yugoslavia in the second
half of the past century by the strong influx of commercial economy and relations in
our villages. Traditional rural structure started to disintegrate. Old forms of »folk«
organization of land cultivations (»open fields«, »fields divided into blocks«, »isolated
holdings with gathered landed estate«, »fields divided into strips of gathered landed
estates«, etc) had been disturbed and broken. The process of fragmentation started.
The landed estate of 5 hectares is dominating today. Mean number of plots per
each peasant holding in Yugoslavia amounts to eight and the size of each plot to
0.60 ha. Relatively large fragmentation and dispersion of productive land is one of the
main obstacles of modernization of Yugoslav agriculture. The spatial organization of
land cultivation based on an expresive fragmentation is uneconomical and requires an
extensive use of labour power and makes difficult the use of mechanization.
Spatial forms of organization of land cultivation are very closely connected with
the social life of village and they have been created and changed under the influence
of it. Furhermore these forms retractively influence the social sphere of village life.
Disorganizaton and anarchy in spatial organization of land cultivation has important
negative social repercusions as one of the factors of retardation of agriculture and village
and of uncontrolled rural exodus.
Needs of planning in rural communities are very acute and implies as a starting
stage the concentration of productive land, which would contribute to the more profitable
use of agricultural land capacities in Yugoslavia.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
118631
URI
Publication date:
13.9.1967.
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