Second, we have information on each parcel’s mode of acquisition (inherited, purchased, or leased). As land markets are very inactive, the majority (3,814) of households cultivate only land they inherited. In addition to estimating relevant equations for the entire sample, we can thus restrict our sample to include only these households for whom levels of fragmentation are exogenous and not affected by household decisions, to avoid concerns about endogeneity.

Finally, we have detailed information on inputs, including hired and family labor and machinery as well as outputs by parcel in each season. Amounts of own and hired male, female, and child labor are reported by activity, i.e. for land preparation, sowing/transplanting, weeding, fertilizer application, pest control, irrigation, harvesting separately. We value them using wage rates from the village survey. Cost of own or hired machinery and bullocks is computed using the village level rental rate. Home produced seed is valued using market or village-level prices. Irrigation charges include water and non-labor operating cost i.e. electricity and fuel for canal or bore wells. Total output value is calculated by aggregating the value across the parcels and crops for each household.

Table 1 illustrates that average holding size in the sample is 4.5 acres in 3.2 parcels (1.7 ac./parcel), with a Simpson index of 0.47 and an average parcel-parcel distance of 858 m that takes some 18 min to traverse. These measures vary across states but are only weakly correlated with each other. For example, relatively large holdings are not necessarily more fragmented, as indicated by the example of Gujarat where holding size is about 6 ac. but, with an average of 1.16 parcels and a Simpson index of 0.07, fragmentation is low. With 1.3 km on average, mean parcel-homestead distances are nevertheless quite large. By comparison, Himachal Pradesh has a holding size of 1.77 ac. in 4.7 parcels, a Simpson of 0.65 or Bihar with a holding size of 3.49 in 4.9 parcels and a Simpson of 0.64. The total distance to be covered between plots and home can be quite different; with 1.76 km it is rather low in Himachal but high in Bihar (2.81 km) or Maharashtra (3.57 km). The number of parcels is lowest in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh (1.16 and 2.28) and highest in Bihar and Himachal Pradesh (4.90 and 4,68) and mean distance to be covered is lowest in Kerala and Himachal Pradesh (392 and 377m) and highest in Maharashtra and Gujarat (1,395 and 1,314 m). We also note that two-thirds of farmers grow paddy and more than half grow wheat with only 10.3% of farmers, mainly in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, growing neither of these.

# **3.2 Household characteristics and agricultural production**

Key statistics on household characteristics and agricultural production in table 2 are reported for the entire sample, by farm size group, level of fragmentation, and by mode of land acquisition.<sup>9</sup> With 5.7 members

> 9 Small, medium, and large farms are defined as less than 2 acres, 2 to 5 acres and greater than 5 acres, comprising 41%, 33%, and 26% of the sample, respectively. Low, medium, and high levels of fragmentation are defined as having less than 2, between 2 and 5 and more than 5 parcels, with 38%, 45%, and 17% of farms falling into the relevant categories. While only 4,286 farms have information on the mode of acquisition for all

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