ABSTRACT
China's entry into the WTO in December 2001 has since placed an increasing pressure on productivity and efficiency in Chinese agriculture. Significant increases in productivity and efficiency are needed to meet the challenges of increased foreign competition. Land fragmentation may act as a major bottleneck in this respect (Fleisher and Liu, 1992; Wan and Cheng, 2001; Zhang, 2002). Due to the high population pressure, the limited availability of arable land, and the prevailing system of land use rights distribution, landholdings in China are strongly fragmented. In 1999, farm households in China cultivated an average area of 0.53 ha, spread over 6.06 plots (Tan et al. forthcoming).
