The ceiling on agricultural landholdings infers situations where limits on the maximum amounts of agricultural land that can be owned are set by the State via policy and legislation, and land in excess of the ceiling (surplus land) is made available for redistribution. The challenge is not the articulation of this policy, but the vagaries of practical implementation. India and Pakistan are among the few countries where this approach was adopted and implemented on a full scale. The experiences of these countries have not been interrogated in a manner which is exhaustive, comparative and informative of suitable approaches to land reform in other emerging economies. A broad survey and analysis of literature is done in this article to construct an argument, which outlines the possibilities and limitations of the ' ceiling method' as a strategy of land reform. The article examines, from a high-level perspicacious position, how, ba