Abandoned farmland is particularly problematic in developed countries where agriculture has a comparative disadvantage in terms of effective use of land resources invested over time. While many studies have estimated the causes of these problems, few have discussed in detail the impact of data characteristics and accuracy on the estimation results. In this study, issues related to the underlying data and the estimation of the determinants of farmland abandonment were examined. Most previous studies on farmland abandonment in Japan have used census data as the basis of their analyses.

A Fit-for-Purpose (FFP) land administration system strives for a more flexible, inclusive, participatory, affordable, reliable, realistic, and scalable approach to land administration and management in developing countries. The FFP finds itself thus at the interface with the coordination and governance challenges of the mainstream promotion of democratic decentralization of the past decades in general, and collaborative systems for decentralized and participatory land governance in Africa, in particular.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) may facilitate the implementation of fit-for-purpose land administration (FFPLA); however, the approach can be compromised when funding for land registration is insufficient or donor projects end. This paper aims to introduce a new form of PPP to the literature on FFPLA, further extending the discourse and options available on PPPs for FFPLA. A background review finds that whilst PPPs have had long standing application in land administration, there is room to explore approaches that seek increased involvement of non-conventional land sector actors.