Abstract: In many countries of the world, rural areas are characterized by a defective spatial structure
of agricultural land. The most frequent defects are large fragmentation and distribution of farmland.
The fragmentation of land has been an issue widely described by many authors throughout the world.
The problem of the distribution of land owned by individual farmers is slightly different, since due
to the complexity of the problem this issue was not widely explored in Poland (plot patchwork) or in
other countries of Europe and the world. Land fragmentation and distribution of plots in rural areas
has a negative effect on the profitability and efficiency of agricultural production. Land consolidation
and exchange is an operation facilitating spatial structure improvement. The authors attempted to
develop a universal land exchange algorithm for eliminating the external plot patchwork. As it
turns out, so far no land exchange algorithm has been developed. Specific analyses were carried
out in Puchaczów commune, county of Ł ˛eczna, Lublin voivodeship in the eastern part of Poland,
covering an area of 6907.80 ha, split into 15,211 plots. The chequerboard arrays method was used.
The publication presents the algorithm and its practical application using a test sample. A result of
the studies is a proposal concerning the exchange of land between landowners in the villages of the
commune of Puchaczów. Using the algorithm, the area of individual lands in the commune, after
the exchange, will increase by 172.09 ha, which is 2.5% for the area of individual lands, and 1.9% for
the commune.
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