Fragmentation of Agricultural Land Parcels

This study seeks to take fragmentation research in a new direction by looking at exurban sprawl and fragmentation of ownership. The primary objective of this study is to identify the location and magnitude of fragmentation of agricultural land parcels sold in Oklahoma. This was accomplished by estimating two different models. The first model regressed a polynomial in time to determine whether or not fragmentation has been increasing over time. While it was hypothesized that parcel size was decreasing, this was not found to be the case. Over the 40 years of data, parcel size was found to only have decreased by one acre. The purpose of the second model was to verify whether or not a location premium exists for small parcels. It was found that a location premium does exist for smaller parcels with parcels in urban counties more likely to receive a premium than those located in more rural counties