In economic analyses of the farm sector, the role of land owners has been apprehended only through the study of the land tenure and the level of farm rent. In this article, the author points out that the off-farm migration leads to a fragmentation of estates while farmholdings tend to concentrate. The result is a wider gap between estate and farmholding which malles a better description of the relationships between land owners and land users necessary. A typology of land owners and land users is proposed and illustrated by a concrete example. This typology broadens the concept of land tenure. It is a tool which should allow, together with others, a better description of the economic agents concerned with the use or the possession of farmland and consequently with the organization of land tenure in a given area. The author particularity stresses the important part played by urban heirs to farms disappearing in a period of rapid technical progress.
