The effect of land fragmentation on the productivity and technical efficiency of smallholder maize farms in Southern Rwanda

2.2 Literature review

2.2.1 Effect of land fragmentation on the productivity and technical efficiency of farms

The literature on land size and land productivity is large and has been around for decades. In recent times Binswanger et. al. (1995) argued that there was an inverse relationship between the two whereas Banerjee and Ghatak (1996) questioned this result. Carlyle (1983), Heston and Kumar (1983), Bentley (1987), Blarel Benoit,  Peter Hazell,  Frank Place and  John Quiggin, (1992), Jabarin and Epplin (1994) focused on the impact of fragmentation on yield and productivity. The debate basically focused on the impact of fragmentation on the ability of farmers to minimize risk. These studies perceived land fragmentation to have a negative impact on productivity and yield.

The countries where the relationship between land size and technical efficiency has been studied include the Philippines (Herdt and Mandac 1981; Dawson and Linagard 1989), Brazil (Taylor and Shonkwiler 1986), Tanzania (Shapiro 1983), Pakistan (Ali and Chaudhry 1989) and India (Huang and Bagi 1984; Kalirajan 1981; Junankar 1980; Sidhu 1974; Lau and Yotopoulos 1971; Battese, Coelli and Colby 1989; Tadesse and Krishnamoorthy 1997). The studies used the stochastic production function approach and concluded that the large variation in yield across farmers was due to differences in technical efficiency, which was largely influenced by farm size and ecological and socio-economic factors such as gender, age, education, extension services, access to credit, among others.

Raghbendra et al. (2005) investigated the impact of land fragmentation on technical efficiency of rice farms in India using the stochastic frontier method and confirmed that there was a significant positive relationship between farm size, average farm size and yield while the number of plots and yield were inversely related. Therefore fragmentation measured in terms of number of farms per household had a negative impact on yield.

Shuhao (2005), using the stochastic frontier method, investigated the impact of land fragmentation on rice production in China and found out that land fragmentation played an important role in explaining technical efficiency. Given the number of plots, increase in average plot size had a significant positive impact on technical efficiency. Distance to the plots, however, had no significant impact on technical efficiency. This implied that farm households with large average distances to the plots were as efficient as farm households with small average distances to the plots. Bizimana et al. (2004) used a block-recursive regression analysis to investigate the effect of land fragmentation on economic efficiency of farms in Rwanda's Butare district. They concluded that land fragmentation reduced the economic efficiency of farms. However, this study did not capture the various dimensions of land fragmentation.

Land fragmentation and productivity/efficiency in Rwanda

Blarel (1989) made research about the effects of land fragmentation on the productivity of farms in Rwanda. To him, land fragmentation has no negative effect on the productivity and efficiency of farms. He argued that farmers operating small farms intensify their farm operations through a more rigorous use of available family labor, a substitution toward higher yielding crops, sowing seeds more densely and growing more crops in associations. Small farms also benefited much from conservation investments such as terraces, living fences, and mulching. He discussed other determinants of productivity/efficiency of farms and concluded that Rwandan farmers were far more likely to invest in the fields for which they had land titles than in fields rented from others. Indeed, higher yields occurred on parcels operated under short-term use rights than under ownership rights.

Blarel Benoit,  Peter Hazell,  Frank Place and  John Quiggin (1992) found out that 40% of Rwandan households owned 8 or more parcels. They still concluded that land fragmentation seemed to have a negative effect on the productivity and efficiency of farms. Place and Hazzel (1993) confirmed that peasants make long-term investments (planting trees, trenching, de-stumping, and green fencing) and short-term investments (continued mulching and manuring) in land if they had secure long-term ownership rights on that land. But these investments do not guarantee that output will be high since other factors such as technology and availability of financial credit affect productivity and efficiency.

Byiringiro and Reardon (1996) found out that farm size and productivity/efficiency were inversely related whereas farm size and labor productivity were positively related. To them, small farms invest twice as much per hectare in soil conservation compared to large farms. They however, discovered that soil erosion severely reduces farm yields in Rwanda.

Studies carried out in Southern Rwanda revealed that the relationship between fragmentation and land productivity might not necessarily be negative ( Blarel Benoit,  Peter Hazell,  Frank Place and  John Quiggin, 1992; Marara and Takeuchi, 2003). However, a study by Bizimana et al. (2004) in the former Rusatira and Muyira districts of the former Butare province revealed that the number of plots per household negatively affected economic efficiency while plot size positively affected economic efficiency. The authors recommended that land consolidation be adopted as it could help increase the economic efficiency of farms.

However, most studies carried out in Rwanda about land fragmentation did not capture all forms/indicators of land fragmentation. Blarel Benoit,  Peter Hazell,  Frank Place and  John Quiggin (1992) used the Simpson index as a measure of fragmentation yet it does not capture the effect of distance travelled to reach the plots. Marara and Takeuchi (2003) only considered the number of plots per household while Bizimana et al. (2004) considered plot size and number of plots per household. This study attempted to include plot size, distance from household residence to plots and number of plots per household in the analysis of the effect of land fragmentation on the productivity and technical efficiency of smallholder maize farms in Rwanda.