This pattern of land use is seen in areas of both land scarcity and abundance, although for different reasons. Where settlement is dense and land scarce, as for example in Rwanda and Malawi, holdings per household and per worker are small and shrinking with population growth. Here, constraints on availability of land determine the size of holdings. Investments in irrigation, application of purchased inputs and improved varieties, double and triple cropping, terracing, and other measures can increase productivity of land and incomes. With increased demand and lower transport costs due to investments in roads and shorter distances to markets, the returns to intensification rise, and more such investments are taking place.

**Table 4: Land Ownership by Age Group**

||**Mala**|**wi **|**Tanza**|**nia**|**Ugan**|**da**|**Nige**|**ria**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Age**<br>**group**|**Proportion**<br>**of**<br>**individuals**<br>**who own at**<br>**least one**<br>**plot**|**Average**<br>**land size**<br>**owned**<br>**(HA)**|**Proportion**<br>**of**<br>**individuals**<br>**who own**<br>**at least**<br>**one plot**|**Average**<br>**land size**<br>**owned**<br>**(HA)**|**Proportion**<br>**of**<br>**individuals**<br>**who own**<br>**at least**<br>**one plot**|**Average**<br>**land size**<br>**owned**<br>**(HA)**|**Proportion**<br>**of**<br>**individuals**<br>**who own**<br>**at least one**<br>**plot**|**Average**<br>**land size**<br>**owned**<br>**(HA)**|
|**15-19**|4.31%|0.37|1.10%|0.56|5.02%|0.54|1.63%|0.53|
|**20-24**|25.63%|0.42|10.88%|0.81|13.19%|0.65|1.74%|0.60|
|**25-29**|38.00%|0.48|26.12%|1.04|30.26%|0.63|3.13%|0.68|
|**30-34 **|39.20%|0.54|38.05%|1.10|43.37%|0.72|3.10%|0.41|
|**35-39**|43.56%|0.60|46.80%|1.16|50.76%|0.83|3.68%|0.51|
|**40-44**|45.28%|0.65|56.49%|1.35|60.18%|0.96|4.52%|0.60|
|**45-49**|49.23%|0.71|58.81%|1.26|62.63%|0.99|5.68%|0.51|
|**50-54 **|51.24%|0.73|59.64%|1.39|64.35%|1.01|5.16%|0.58|
|**55-59**|50.56%|0.68|64.62%|1.36|69.70%|1.16|6.54%|0.45|
|**60+ **|50.35%|0.63|61.56%|1.19|67.87%|0.91|7.70%|0.43|
|**Ave.**|**33.39%**|**0.57 **|**32.64%**|**1.20**|**33.06%**|**0.85**|**3.77%**|**0.52 **|

_Source_ : World Bank LSMS-ISA data 2012.

The prevalence of small holdings in areas of abundant land is less intuitively explicable. Much of Africa is still land abundant, and one would expect to see large farms with significant mechanical power. Farm operators with access to capital do work on large holdings. The high costs of machinery, the poor credit-worthiness of small farmers, the limited outreach of the financial sector, and the indivisibility of many investments in mechanization, however, exclude most smallholders from access to mechanical power. The result is replication of farms limited by the size that a household can farm manually. Larger holdings are possible with animal traction, but tsetse and other animal diseases constrain the use of draft animals in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa where they would be most productive.

Ambiguities in transactability of land through purchase, sale, leasing, inheritance, assignment under traditional rules, and mortgage overlay population pressures and capital constraints (World Bank 2012b). Even if land is abundant, when constraints to operation of land markets raise the cost of accessing new land, young people reaching adulthood may simply farm a portion of the family’s original holding rather than securing new allotments. Fragmentation of existing small holdings can thus exist in environments where large tracts are available for outside investors.

When the factor endowments are such that small, labor-intensive farms are economically appropriate, such farms can be efficient and profitable. Recent evidence based on a 17