Segmenting the market for agricultural land in the Netherlands

In spatial planning the land market is of fundamental importance. The price level and transferability of land has consequences for possibilities with respect to buildings, recreation areas, nature development, roads, etc. Information not only for different regions, but also for different groups of players in the market is essential for planning different 'green' and 'red' functions in the future. However, statistical information of the land market used to be limited. The research as described in this paper made a first attempt to segment all the transactions (where land in agricultural use was involved) into different coherent buyer-groups. The transactions from the years 1998-2000 have been used to build a land-transaction database. As is shown, there are some regional differences in the total sales of land and the land price. Where possible an explanation for these differences is given. Copyright Royal Dutch Geographical Society 2002.