## 4 Discussion
However, over the next two decades coincided with the fastest development of industrialization and urbanization in Shanghai, and the policy effect of the \"Three Concentrations\" was not fully displayed due to the reality of plot fragmentation and land dispersion. By 2019, only 62 percent of concentrated and contiguous farmlands larger than 20 ha in Shanghai's suburbs were cultivated, although land consolidation and high-standard farmland construction had helped to some extent. Third, under the influence of high intensity human activities, industrial production and transportation construction, the aggregation degree and the quality of cultivated land in the inner suburbs such as Baoshan, Jiading, Minhang districts are lower than those in the outer suburbs of Shanghai. The traditional view was that enlarging the scale of land through land consolidation was an important method of promoting the moderate-scale management of agriculture [77; 78]. However, we found that moderate-scale agricultural management can also be developed under the background of land fragmentation. Land fragmentation has existed for a long time. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 70% of the food produced in the world still comes from small-scale agriculture [79]. In the suburbs of Shanghai, due to the unique farmland shrinkage and inheritance system [65], population growth and urban expansion, historical and cultural traditions and other factors, we should not overstate the negative effects of land fragmentation (e.g., long farming distance, irregular plot shape, and inappropriate for mechanical operation) [44] and instead should pay attention to the positive role of land fragmentation (e.g., diversification of planting is conducive to the spread of natural and market risks, part-time \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Year**} & **Total Cultivated Area** & \begin{tabular}{c} **Average Occupies** **Arab** \\ **(10\({}^{4}\) ha)** \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Average Occupies** \\ **Land per Rural** \\ **Population (m\({}^{2}\))** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Average Occupies** \\ **Arable Land per** \\ **Rural Employee (m\({}^{2}\))** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline
1990 & 32.32 & 773 & 1293 \\
2000 & 28.59 & 731 & 1048 \\
2010 & 20.10 & 598 & 969 \\
2019 & 15.89 & 673 & 1109 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 17: Changes in cultivated land scale in the suburbs of Shanghai. farming, improvements of landscape value, and land exchange) [13; 43]. In addition, its negative effects can also be reduced to a certain extent by innovative policies [80]. It is commonly believed that land fragmentation will increase production costs and lead to loss of productivity. However, the historical productivity losses from land fragmentation have been moderate, with profits increasing to some extent by diversification of risks, as well as by land consolidation efforts. In addition, increases in production costs may induce the replacement of labor by machinery. Moreover, the relationship between farm size and production costs is not always linear but may show an inverted U-shaped curve [30]. We also found that agricultural economies of scale can be obtained under the background of land dispersion. This can be examined from a multi-scale perspective. At the plot scale, the expansion of the plot scale is undoubtedly beneficial to the improvement of land use efficiency. However, even if they do not expand the plot scale, land use efficiency can still improve. Land transfer can also expand the scale of peasant household operation and regional operation scale. There is no certain connection between the changes in peasant household operation scale and regional operation scale and the changes in plot scale. In other words, land fragmentation and dispersion can coexist with peasant household scale management and regional scale management.