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Kyoto Environment and Development Seminar on Dec. 9 [for Members and Generals]

NEWSアイキャッチ

The Kyoto Environment and Development seminar series (zoom) are open to anyone, and so feel free to join us.

For participation, prior registration is required here
https://sites.google.com/view/aes-kyotonre

Kyoto Environment & Development Seminar #5

  • Date&Time: December 9, 2021, Thursday, 10:30-12:00 (JST)
  • Language: English
  • Venue: Zoom Web Seminar
  • Registration: https://kyoto-u-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIsde6oqjkjG9PHmu-P6WjwQRIykEOHWQIu
  • Speaker: Kentaro Kawasaki (University of Tokyo)
  • Title: Gravity of farmland: Spatial model of land fragmentation and farm size growth

Abstract:

Increasing the size of farmland is a key to improving farmers’ economic well-being. However, farmland is often fragmented into small plots and scattered in various places, especially in Asia and Africa, that offsets the potential benefit of the economies of scale. By modeling the spatial distribution of farmland, this study derives three theoretical predictions regarding the mechanism of farm size growth: 1. distance hypothesis (farmland attracts closer farmland); 2. size hypothesis (larger farmland attracts more farmland); and 3. fragmentation hypothesis (fragmented farmland attracts more farmland). We then test these hypotheses empirically using farm-level data of Japanese rice farmers. The evidence supports all three hypotheses and their effects are not trivial. In the literature, land fragmentation is typically considered harmful to the farm economy by increasing travel costs between plots, but our results indicate that it does have a benefit in promoting farm size growth.

  • Chair: Junichi Ito (Division of Natural Resource Economics, Kyoto University)
  • Organizers: Junichi Ito, Yohei Mitani, Ken Miura, Chieko Umetsu

Contact

Division of Natural Resource Economics
Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University
Ken Miura 

  • miura.ken.3e [at] kyoto-u.ac.jp(replace [at] with @)

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