ALF is also defined as the position in which a single farm consists of many parcels separated by space (Demetriou, 2014). McPherson (1982) defined land fragmentation as a number of spatially separated parcels of owned or rented farming lands. Management of fragmented lands is one of the main dimensions of sustainable land management. It means that policy-makers need to make necessary reforms for agricultural transformation and efficiency such as sustainable land management (FAO, 2011). With respect to the rising demographic changes in the world, it is expected that the world needs 70 % more food production (by 2050). Nevertheless, in many countries across the world ALF is associated with lower agricultural production and, more broadly, limited rural development (Jürgenson, 2016). For example, it has not only affected agricultural production, crop yields (Veljanoska, 2018), production costs (Gonzalez et al., 2007 McDonnel, 2018), farm productivity (Looga et al., 2018), the potential income of farms (Janus et al., 2016), and land loss (Lam et al., 2018) in a negative way but also had a significant positive impact on agricultural production diversification (Ciaian et al., 2018) and non-agricultural labor supply (Xie and Lu, 2017). (Niroula and Thapa, 2005 Kalantari and Abdollahzadeh, 2008 Asadi et al., 2016 Mesgaran et al., 2016 Gomes et al., 2019). There are many socio-economic, political, ecological and environmental reasons leading to ALF such as population growth, the inheritance system, increase in land prices, road network and urban expansion, disasters, climate changes, family size and income, etc. The proper strategy for any kind of land is not only dependent on their policies (PV and EV) but also on VF and VN.Īgricultural land fragmentation (ALF) is a phenomenon observed in many countries, especially in the developing ones (Veljanoska, 2018) including Iran (Abdollahzadeh et al., 2012). This study concludes that if a government or land policy-makers want to manage ALF, they should not apply the same strategies for all the agricultural lands. Concerning cardinal preferences, the best response of each player is related to at least four variables: the value of fragmented land (VF) and non-fragmented land (VN), the punishment value (PV), and the encouragement value (EV). This study analyzes the ALF game under cardinal preferences that is closer to the real world of ALF. The main causes of conflict include: a) The players of this game act with respect to their best individual response and without considering the whole system payoffs b) The players cannot create the necessary structures for collaboration and c) There is not an external authority to enforce rules and regulations of the game. The results of this study show that, in the ordinal form of the game, the farmer tends to fragment his or her agricultural land, although the strictly dominant strategy of the farmer is “do not fragment”. It presents an ALF strategic game model based on the ordinal and cardinal preferences of the players. The main aim of this study is to explain and evaluate the strategic space of decision-making between farmer and government regarding the issue of ALF in Iran using game theory. In Iran (similar to many other countries), ALF has two main players: farmers and government. Therefore, ALF management should be one of the main components of the land policy and decision-making systems regarding agricultural lands.
ALF could affect agricultural production, rural development, labor supply, food security, and land use change.
Agricultural land fragmentation (ALF) is one of the main challenges of developing countries including Iran.
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