_al._ 1991). This procedure produces consistent estimates as it explicitly accommodates the non-negative nature of the technical inefficiency in the likelihood function, thus allowing us to make inferences on the impacts of fragmentation on technical inefficiency.

# **3. Data and descriptive evidence**

We describe our panel sample of small Rwandan producers and descriptive evidence of household and parcel characteristics with different levels of fragmentation. Data are suggestive of fragmentation helping to reduce risk and diversify crop output. Comparing GIS/DEM based parcel-parcel and parcel-homestead distances for households in autarky and those participating in land rental or sales markets and, more importantly, own vs. rented or purchased parcels by the same household, suggests that survey responses may be biased and that, while land purchase may significantly increase distances between parcels (though by a small amount), there is no evidence of rental having any significant impact in this respect.

# **3.1 Data sources and household/parcel characteristics**

To provide evidence on fragmentation and production outcomes, we use a nationally representative tworound panel survey of 3,600 households in 300 randomly selected villages (see figure 3 for location of sample cells) conducted in 2010/11 and 2011/12.<sup>12</sup> Detailed information on crop production was collected at parcel level and GPS readings were taken for the homestead and all parcels in the cell of a household’s residence. Key descriptive statistics are illustrated in table 1, overall (col. 1) and for households in terciles of the parcel distribution (cols. 2-4) where stars indicate the significance of differences between the 1<sup>st</sup> and the 2<sup>nd</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup> terciles, respectively.

While mean holding size is only 0.81 ha, 0.61 ha of which is cultivated, the average sample household has almost 5 parcels on which some 4.5 crops are grown, a figure increasing to 8.3 parcels and 5.6 crops for the top tercile (see appendix figure 1 for the distribution of number of crops cultivated). Parcels have been possessed for 17.91 years on average, 8.2% are located in wetland, 5.5% have access to irrigation, and 36% and 16% are reported to be of high or medium soil quality. About 50% are cultivated with grains, 26% with tubers, 23% with trees, and the remainder of about 1% with vegetables. While those with more parcels cultivate slightly more tubers and less grains, mean output value per ha remains at some US$ 559 throughout. There is also no difference in the share of parcels (some 10%) benefiting from extension input. With a high overall share of female headed households being in the bottom tercile, they have significantly fewer parcels than male headed ones. Households with more parcels are slightly larger, with 2.3 1.7, and 0.98 members below 14, between 14 and 35, and between 35 and 60, respectively and have marginally

> 12 The panel survey (i.e., baseline and its follow up) is designed for assessing the impact of Rwanda’s program of land tenure regularization (LTR) and was managed by the World Bank with support from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and International Growth Centre (IGC).

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