Economics of fragmented land for vegetable growers in Skopje and the Southeastern region of the Republic of Macedonia

This paper examines the influence of land fragmentation on the value of vegetables produced in the Skopje and Southeastern regions of the Republic of Macedonia. The analysis uses models such as a Cobb-Douglas production function as well as a General Linear Model. The findings support a negative and statistically significant impact of land fragmentation on the productivity and profitability of vegetable production in the study area. A reduction from 0.43 to 0.2 of the Simpson index, on average, increases vegetable production by approximately 7.06%. However, the results reveal that land is of somewhat less importance due to the opportunity to use greenhouse technology. The results based on the linear model reveal that the introduction of greenhouse technology increases the value of production by around 32%. Nevertheless, appropriate policies ought to promote successful land consolidation further