The relationship between agricultural land parcel size and cultivation costs

Juho Valtiala; Olli Niskanen; Mikael Torvinen; Kirsikka Riekkinen; Antti Suokannas

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106728

The relationship between agricultural land parcel size and cultivation costs

Juho Valtiala
, Olli Niskanen
, Mikael Torvinen
, Kirsikka Riekkinen^*
, Antti Suokannas

^*Corresponding author for this work

Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)
National Land Survey of Finland

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review

25 Citations (Web of Science)

205 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Land fragmentation in agriculture is acknowledged as a problem that causes additional costs in cultivation and lowers productivity. Land consolidation programmes seek to alleviate the problem by influencing land ownership, with the aim to reduce travel distances and increase parcel sizes by connecting adjacent small land parcels. Decision making requires cost–benefit analysis of the costs of ownership changes compared to the potential benefits. Such analysis is based on before and after assessment, where the benefits of a larger parcel size and the costs caused by the distances travelled between land parcels and between parcels are the key determinants. This paper presents a method to analyse realized work efficiency at different parcels. The benefit from a larger parcel size appears to be greater than that reported in previous studies.

Original language	English
Article number	106728
Number of pages	9
Journal	Land Use Policy
Volume	131
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106728
Publication status	Published - Aug 2023
MoE publication type	A1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

Agricultural land in Finland is divided into very many parcels for geographical and historical reasons, and the resulting land fragmentation causes productivity losses to farmers. The conducted study revised previous results regarding the relationship between parcel size and working efficiency. The results indicate that there has been some development in working efficiency in the course of time, and technical benefits arising from a large parcel size have slightly grown. However, marginal benefits become increasingly negligible once the parcel size exceeds 20 ha. This result was supported by the tendency of farmers of dividing parcels in practice. The statistical analysis demonstrated that the probability of dividing a parcel between different crops is very low for smaller parcels, and that a parcel of size 27.8 ha has 50% probability of being divided.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 2 Zero Hunger

Keywords

Efficiency analysis
Land consolidation
Parcel size

Access to Document

10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106728Licence: CC BY

1-s2.0-S0264837723001941-mainFinal published version, 3.21 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The relationship between agricultural land parcel size and cultivation costs",

abstract = "Land fragmentation in agriculture is acknowledged as a problem that causes additional costs in cultivation and lowers productivity. Land consolidation programmes seek to alleviate the problem by influencing land ownership, with the aim to reduce travel distances and increase parcel sizes by connecting adjacent small land parcels. Decision making requires cost–benefit analysis of the costs of ownership changes compared to the potential benefits. Such analysis is based on before and after assessment, where the benefits of a larger parcel size and the costs caused by the distances travelled between land parcels and between parcels are the key determinants. This paper presents a method to analyse realized work efficiency at different parcels. The benefit from a larger parcel size appears to be greater than that reported in previous studies.",

keywords = "Efficiency analysis, Land consolidation, Parcel size",

author = "Juho Valtiala and Olli Niskanen and Mikael Torvinen and Kirsikka Riekkinen and Antti Suokannas",

note = "Funding Information: Agricultural land in Finland is divided into very many parcels for geographical and historical reasons, and the resulting land fragmentation causes productivity losses to farmers. The conducted study revised previous results regarding the relationship between parcel size and working efficiency. The results indicate that there has been some development in working efficiency in the course of time, and technical benefits arising from a large parcel size have slightly grown. However, marginal benefits become increasingly negligible once the parcel size exceeds 20 ha. This result was supported by the tendency of farmers of dividing parcels in practice. The statistical analysis demonstrated that the probability of dividing a parcel between different crops is very low for smaller parcels, and that a parcel of size 27.8 ha has 50\% probability of being divided. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors",

year = "2023",

month = aug,

doi = "10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106728",

language = "English",

volume = "131",

journal = "Land Use Policy",

issn = "0264-8377",

publisher = "Elsevier",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - The relationship between agricultural land parcel size and cultivation costs

AU - Valtiala, Juho

AU - Niskanen, Olli

AU - Torvinen, Mikael

AU - Riekkinen, Kirsikka

AU - Suokannas, Antti

N1 - Funding Information: Agricultural land in Finland is divided into very many parcels for geographical and historical reasons, and the resulting land fragmentation causes productivity losses to farmers. The conducted study revised previous results regarding the relationship between parcel size and working efficiency. The results indicate that there has been some development in working efficiency in the course of time, and technical benefits arising from a large parcel size have slightly grown. However, marginal benefits become increasingly negligible once the parcel size exceeds 20 ha. This result was supported by the tendency of farmers of dividing parcels in practice. The statistical analysis demonstrated that the probability of dividing a parcel between different crops is very low for smaller parcels, and that a parcel of size 27.8 ha has 50% probability of being divided. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

PY - 2023/8

Y1 - 2023/8

N2 - Land fragmentation in agriculture is acknowledged as a problem that causes additional costs in cultivation and lowers productivity. Land consolidation programmes seek to alleviate the problem by influencing land ownership, with the aim to reduce travel distances and increase parcel sizes by connecting adjacent small land parcels. Decision making requires cost–benefit analysis of the costs of ownership changes compared to the potential benefits. Such analysis is based on before and after assessment, where the benefits of a larger parcel size and the costs caused by the distances travelled between land parcels and between parcels are the key determinants. This paper presents a method to analyse realized work efficiency at different parcels. The benefit from a larger parcel size appears to be greater than that reported in previous studies.

AB - Land fragmentation in agriculture is acknowledged as a problem that causes additional costs in cultivation and lowers productivity. Land consolidation programmes seek to alleviate the problem by influencing land ownership, with the aim to reduce travel distances and increase parcel sizes by connecting adjacent small land parcels. Decision making requires cost–benefit analysis of the costs of ownership changes compared to the potential benefits. Such analysis is based on before and after assessment, where the benefits of a larger parcel size and the costs caused by the distances travelled between land parcels and between parcels are the key determinants. This paper presents a method to analyse realized work efficiency at different parcels. The benefit from a larger parcel size appears to be greater than that reported in previous studies.

KW - Efficiency analysis

KW - Land consolidation

KW - Parcel size

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DO - 10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106728

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85158048205

SN - 0264-8377

VL - 131

JO - Land Use Policy

JF - Land Use Policy

M1 - 106728

ER -

The relationship between agricultural land parcel size and cultivation costs

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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Aalto University Data Hub

Cite this

The relationship between agricultural land parcel size and cultivation costs

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Equipment

Aalto University Data Hub

Cite this