New research on the layout of NI farms has found that 35% of local farms are made up of five or more fragments of land.

The average farm in NI has three fragments and only 16% of businesses are made up of just one block of land.

The analysis by researchers at the Agri Food and Biosciences Institute found that the average distance between fragments of land on NI farms was 1.38km.

The study, which was published in the scientific journal Land, describes farmland fragmentation as “a defining feature” of NI agriculture.

In Britain, for example, previous research found that 53% of farms are laid out in one block and only 5.5% of farms have five or more fragments.

The AFBI research found that larger farms in NI tend to be more fragmented than smaller farms. Of the farms in NI that are laid out in one block, 53% of them are under 16ha.

Also, dairy farms are more fragmented than suckler farms and beef finishing units. This trend was put down to dairy farms tending to have a larger land area and being more involved in expansion.

The researchers said dispersed land blocks on local farms can have “important implications” for the spread of disease among neighbouring cattle herds. “Highly fragmented land could also hamper productivity via diseconomies of scale, such as preventing the increase of herd sizes or additionally, adding to farm costs by increasing the complexity of herd management,” the paper reads.