The Role of Land Ownership in Rural Development

The issue of Land ownership is one of the most important and complex issues which can be considered as a barrier to the agricultural and rural development. The phenomenon of small agricultural land ownership which has been resulted from land reforms in Iran is considered as a major obstacle for sustainable agricultural development. While the main sources of agricultural production (land and water) are constant values, the population has increased significantly and human food supply has been faced with restrictions. Using modern Technologies in agricultural lands can improve the yield of labor, soil and water as the main sources of production. Use of machinery can lead to increased production, farmer's income and ultimately increase revenue in the agricultural sector which has been challenged by the phenomenon of Small agricultural land ownership. One of the progressive solutions to this problem is integrating agricultural lands. At the present research the studied villages have been investigated based on frequency of large and small land ownership. Based on assumptions, the sample villages have been selected from either large scale or traditional small scale land ownership and the results were evaluated by questionnaire, interview and field observations and analyzed by SPSS software. According to our results, although large scale agricultural land experience increases the productivity per unit area, but the villagers have no interest in lands integration due to increasing unemployment rate, lacking of credibility to spend, the issue of ownership document and not enough knowledge in using new technologies.