THE ECONOMICS OF LAND FRAGMENTATION: ASSESSING THE NEED FOR LAND CONSOLIDATION AMONG SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN AZERBAIJAN

<jats:p>Background The land privatizations of the late 1990s in Azerbaijan successfully established private property rights but inadvertently led to severe land fragmentation and sub-optimal parcel sizes. Today, this structural inefficiency serves as a primary bottleneck for agrarian modernization and rural development. Objective This study evaluates the economic consequences of land fragmentation across various economic regions of Azerbaijan and assesses the institutional necessity for systemic land consolidation. Methodology A comprehensive, mixed-methods approach was deployed, integrating three core components: (1) statistical and economic analysis of national agrarian datasets, (2) comparative institutional valuation of farm expenditures, and (3) empirical field surveys among smallholder farmers across diverse natural-economic zones of the republic.Results The findings demonstrate that excessive fragmentation exponentially inflates operational costs, disrupts automated machinery deployment, and severely restricts the adoption of modern irrigation frameworks. Economic modeling indicates a clear threshold for baseline financial sustainability: to achieve optimal economies of scale and maintain long-term production profitability, the minimum viable operational area for individual smallholder farms must not fall below 5 hectares. Conclusion The study concludes that voluntary, state-supported land consolidation is economically imperative for Azerbaijan. These insights provide actionable benchmarks for policy-makers implementing newly proposed land code amendments and formulating national sustainable rural strategies.</jats:p>