negative external effects. Further research to explore whether this perception can be attributed to specific events, such as loss or degradation of resources smallholders have traditionally relied upon, or the general uncertainty and disruption of traditional patterns of life due to sudden appearance of an unfamiliar farming operation next door will be important to help shape a proper response (i.e. either regulation and enforcement of existing rules or communication).

To properly interpret our results and to identify ways in which their robustness and relevance may be improved two caveats need to be borne in mind. First, our results hinge on the data including all new large farms formed and, as data pertain to changes in large farms in 2012-14, can only identify short term spillover effects. There are many reasons why these may be different from what would be expected in the long term. Having a question regarding large farms’ year of establishment included in the TIA survey would allow to address this.<sup>20</sup> In addition, the importance of having a complete list of large farms, other countries’ experience, and the potential relevance of such data to guide administrative action (e.g. on failed ventures) imply that extra effort may be warranted in three respects, namely (i) cross-checking of the sample frame with other administrative data (investment licenses, tax office) to ensure completeness, in particular inclusion of farms that had been established after the sample frame for the agricultural census had been completed; (ii) verification with local authorities to ensure ‘informal’ ventures that were either missed in the census or established after its conduct are included; and (iii) clear procedures on how non-responses are dealt with and farms that ceased operations are identified. In the medium term, this could be complemented with use of remotely sensed imagery to ascertain accuracy of information on key variables, in particular the size and boundaries of area actually used for crop cultivation.

Second, while we can estimate mean spillover effects from recent large farm establishment, policy makers may be interested in how such impacts differ between different types of investments (or investors) and the modality of land acquisition. One can think of several interesting aspects in these dimensions, namely (i) access to infrastructure; quality, transparency, and outreach in conducting legally prescribed community consultation during land acquisition; (ii) contractual obligations and profit sharing arrangements and production practices (pure crop or livestock production vs. integration with processing with capacity to add value to neighboring smallholders’ produce) regarding the nature of investments; (iii) corporate structure; (iv) country of origin; (v) clarity of business plans, initial availability of resources for implementation, and CSR activities envisaged in them; (vi) technical efficiency; and (vii) participation in certification schemes or commodity roundtables as relevant investor attributes. Information on each of these dimensions is available either in administrative records (e.g. project files maintained by investment authorities) or can be obtained by including relevant questions in future survey rounds. Efforts to do so would be a high priority

> 20 In fact, a question to this effect had been included in earlier years of the TIA but was then dropped.

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