Does Land Fragmentation Increase the Cost of Cultivation?

• Tác giả: Klaus Deininger
• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 333.76 Rural lands
• Thông tin xuất bản: Taylor and Francis, 2016
• Bộ sưu tập: Tài liệu truy cập mở
• ID: 309119
• Chủ đề: 1. agricultural productivity; 2. fragmentation; 3. inheritance; 4. land ownership; 5. scale economies

Tóm tắt

To appreciate overall impacts of fragmentation, underlying channels, and potential heterogeneity by holding size, we distinguish average fragment size and mean inter-fragment distance as two aspects of this phenomenon. Estimating a cost function with associated input demand equations on a large nationally representative Indian survey, robust to endogeneity, suggests that fragmentation's main impact is to reduce mean plot size below the threshold for mechanization. Higher inter-fragment distances increase costs for larger holdings, but by a much smaller magnitude. Implications as to when programs to consolidate holdings may make sense and ways to ensure their sustainability are discussed.