C T KURIEN The €c Scale Factor^ in Agriculture: An Analysis of Some Tamil Nadu Data THE discussion of the impact of the scale factor in agricultural performance goes back at least to the early sixties when, on the basis of the data from the farm management studies, a lively discussion ensued on what came to be referred to as the ^size-productivity relationship". A finding that received considerable attention at that time was the alleged inverse relationship between farm size and productivity per acre which led to many writings about its theoretical and policy implications.1 There was then a lull for a while, but the debate was reopened towards the end of the decade when Ashok Rudra questioned the empirical regularities assumed in the debate and stated that the relation between yield and farm size is spurious.2 About the same time a new dimension was added to the discussion in terms of the impact of the new technology introduced into Indian agriculture during the period of the ^grecn revolution".3 Whereas the central issue in the first phase of the discussion was scale in relation to production efficiency, the emphasis shifted to scale in relation to sharing of benefits in the second phase. More recently Sen and Rudra, who appeared to have been on opposite sides of the debate, have come out with a joint paper in which they say "the positions taken in the past by the present authors might have appeared sharply