Among the factors of production, land stands out for a number of significant features. The main one is that it is a very broad content factor, it includes the actual land resources used for economic activities, water resources. In addition, land as a factor of production can be considered simply as a kind of geographical location or the minerals present on it. In some cases, land refers to residential or industrial premises.
In addition, land as a factor of production is characterized by a number of other features, here they are:
- it does not represent the result of labor, and therefore does not have value, as such;
- land acquires a price only after it enters into the sale and purchase turnover, after which it becomes someone else's property;
- it has a dual characteristic, to be both an object and an object of labor;
- land acts as a unique and non-replaceable factor of production;
- land, unlike other factors that, in the process of use, lose their value and characteristics, is capable of improving them;
- it is a limited resource;
- the land is not movable and has various quality parameters.
Earth as a means of production is characterized by a plurality of forms of its use. The most common form of land use is agricultural activity. At the same time, it acts both as an object of labor and as an instrument of labor, since a person solves many economic problems by influencing the earth. The use of land in agricultural activity is most fully revealed through the concepts of productivity and fertility.
As already emphasized, land as a factor of production has the property of fertility. On its parameters, in fact, depends on the suitability and value of the land.
Land in other sectors also occupies a unique place among the means of production. Here her special features are manifested in the following:
- it is a product of nature;
- land gives an effect only in interaction with other resources of natural and non-natural origin;
- land - an indispensable tool, limited quantitatively and little susceptible to physical and moral depreciation;
- Earth is the natural basis for saving life on the planet.
Land as a factor of production is organically connected with such human activities as construction, land reclamation, water supply and sanitation, arrangement of transport infrastructure, planting of forests and others. In this regard, it acquires the most important social significance, in fact, it itself turns into a social object.
For example, this is most apparent when choosing a human environment that always strives for more favorable conditions. It has always been the basis of material well-being, and therefore quite definitely influenced such areas as politics, economics, and society. Land ownership in the Middle Ages was the main factor in the social differentiation of society and the basis for its identification.
That is why today nature management in general, and land use in particular, is given great importance. Land has become an important subject of legal regulation, up to the constitutional level. In the Russian Federation, as in other countries, a special procedure for land allocation for various types of activities is provided. According to him, earthworks can only be carried out after obtaining a special permit.
The documentary embodiment of such permission is a warrant for excavation. This document, as a rule, defines the types of permitted works, their terms and methods of production. This document examines in detail what technological operations will be carried out during earthwork, what are the objectives of this activity, and how environmental measures will be ensured after the completion of work.