Author(s)

I. T. Kristensen & B.M. Rasmussen

Abstract

Change in agricultural structure may have impact on employment in rural areas, environment, wildlife and landscape. Normally Administrative units have been used in describing the agricultural structure. This article describes a method to determine the geographical variation in agricultural structures from single farm data and shows how this knowledge can be used in determining the correlation between local structure variables and trends in farm development. In Denmark information about all farms are registered together with address co- ordinates. Through GIS and geo-statistical analyses the observations are generalised to maps showing the geographical variation of e.g. mean farm size, mean live stock hold or number of animal pr. acre. Comparing information for several years gives the opportunity to classify farms after their owners behaviour. By point inspection, information of the behaviour is related to the local structure variables and a potential correlation between these is analysed.

Keywords