Lands in Kinmen are infertile, mostly consisted of rough hills, igneous rocks mixed with miscellaneous sandstones, with 85% being acid soil, 92% sandy land, and 86% with less than 1% organic matter content and more than 50% with low effective potassium, resulting in poor capacity of water and fertilizer preservation.
The area of public and private cultivated land in Kinmen County is approx. 6,900 hectares, in which public land area occupies 23% and private land 77%; with some land taken for forestation and military purposes, actual available cultivated land area is approx. 4,900 hectares. The average cultivated land area for each farm household is about 0.79 hectare, all being dry farmland; the rate of irrigation availability of cultivated land is 1.2% of total cultivated land area for farm households.
According to statistics of Kinmen County, 72% of its farmers are owner farmers, 25% part-tenant farmers, and 3% employed farmers; in farm households of the county, 18.49% are full-time farmers, and 81.51% part-time farmers. The total number of farm households is approx. 3,300, and the population engaged in agriculture and husbandry is about 20,300, occupying 45% of the entire population in the county; small-farmer system is adopted by all farm households.
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