thumb|The [[Green Revolution significantly increased food production, enabling it to outpace population growth reducing the risk of food scarcity as population increased in the latter half of the 20th century.]]

thumb|Grain [[silos -- increases in yields of grain and grain calory production has been the main cause of productivity increases in the 20th century.|316x316px]]

thumb|380px|Rice plantation in Thailand

thumb|Cambodians planting rice, 2004|293x293px

Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio of agricultural outputs to inputs. While individual products are usually measured by weight, which is known as crop yield, varying products make measuring overall agricultural output difficult. Therefore, agricultural productivity is usually measured as the market value of the final output. This productivity can be compared to many different types of inputs such as labour or land. Such comparisons are called partial measures of productivity.

Agricultural productivity may also be measured by what is termed total factor productivity (TFP). This method of calculating agricultural productivity compares an index of agricultural inputs to an index of outputs. This measure of agricultural productivity was established to remedy the shortcomings of the partial measures of productivity; notably that it is often hard to identify the factors cause them to change. Changes in TFP are usually attributed to technological improvements.

Agricultural productivity is an important component of food security. Increasing agricultural productivity through sustainable practices can be an important way to decrease the amount of land needed for farming and slow environmental degradation and climate change through processes like deforestation.

Sources of agricultural productivity

thumb|300px|Wheat yields in [[least developed countries since 1961. The steep rise in crop yields in the U.S. began in the 1940s. The percentage of growth was fastest in the early rapid growth stage. In developing countries maize yields are still rapidly rising.]]

Productivity is driven by changes in either agricultural technique or improvements in technology. Some sources of changes in agricultural productivity have included:

  • Mechanization
  • High yield varieties, which were the basis of the Green revolution
  • Fertilizers: Primary plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and secondary nutrients such as sulfur, zinc, copper, manganese, calcium, magnesium and molybdenum on deficient soil
  • Education in management and entrepreneurial techniques to decrease fixed and variable costs and optimise manpower
  • Liming of acid soils to raise pH and to provide calcium and magnesium
  • Irrigation
  • Herbicides
  • Genetic engineering
  • Pesticides
  • Increased plant density
  • Animal feed made more digestible by processing
  • Keeping animals indoors in cold weather

See: Productivity improving technologies (historical) Section: 2.4.1: Mechanization: Agriculture, Section 2.6: Scientific agriculture.

Impact

The productivity of a region's farms is important for many reasons. Aside from providing more food, increasing the productivity of farms affects the region's prospects for growth and competitiveness on the agricultural market, income distribution and savings, and labour migration. An increase in a region's agricultural productivity implies a more efficient distribution of scarce resources. As farmers adopt new techniques and differences, the more productive farmers benefit from an increase in their welfare while farmers who are not productive enough will exit the market to seek success elsewhere.

thumb|right|A [[cooperative dairy factory in Victoria.]]

As a region's farms become more productive, its comparative advantage in agricultural products increases, which means that it can produce these products at a lower opportunity cost than can other regions. Therefore, the region becomes more competitive on the world market, which means that it can attract more consumers since they are able to buy more of the products offered for the same amount of money. As productivity improvement leads to falling food prices, this automatically leads to increases in real income elsewhere.

Increases in agricultural productivity lead also to agricultural growth and can help to alleviate poverty in poor and developing countries, where agriculture often employs the greatest portion of the population. As farms become more productive, the wages earned by those who work in agriculture increase. At the same time, food prices decrease and food supplies become more stable. Labourers therefore have more money to spend on food as well as other products. This also leads to agricultural growth. People see that there is a greater opportunity to earn their living by farming and are attracted to agriculture either as owners of farms themselves or as labourers.

thumb|right|A liquid [[manure spreader.]]

It is not only the people employed in agriculture who benefit from increases in agricultural productivity. Those employed in other sectors also enjoy lower food prices and a more stable food supply. Their wages may also increase. As agricultural productivity grows, food prices decrease, allowing people to spend less on food, and combatting hunger. India, one of the world's most populous countries, has taken steps in the past decades to increase its land productivity. In the 1960s North India produced only wheat, but with the advent of the earlier maturing high-yielding wheats and rices, the wheat could be harvested in time to plant rice. This wheat/rice combination is now widely used throughout the Punjab, Haryana, and parts of Uttar Pradesh. The wheat yield of three tons and rice yield of two tons combine for five tons of grain per hectare, helping to feed India's 1.1 billion people.

Investing in the agricultural productivity of women in farming communities is of particular importance in boosting economic development and food security in parts of the developing world. Women in some areas of the world, for example in Africa, traditionally have less agency than men, but are often also more invested in farming in terms of time spent. They are furthermore generally more responsible for childcare, thus their productivity is more likely to translate in gains for the family as a whole.

However, unlike other animals, in humans greater development and prosperity has led to lower fecundity. Thus as productivity has increased and poverty has been reduced worldwide, population growth is declining. Research suggests we may actually face a declining world population in the future.

Inverse relationship theory

thumb|left|[[Dairy cattle in Maryland]]

thumb|right|Some essential food products including [[bread, rice and pasta]]

Deolalikar in 1981 investigated the theory first proposed by Sen in 1975 that in traditional, pre-modern farming in India, there is an inverse relationship to size of the farm and productivity, contrary to the economy of scale found in all other types of economic activity. It is debated whether the inverse relationship actually exists. Numerous studies falsify this theory. In Zimbabwe, policies on agrarian land reform under president Robert Mugabe, especially in and following 2000, split large farms into many smaller farms, and this decreased productivity. Marxist agrarian land reform in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam combined small farms into larger units, this usually failed to increase productivity.

Nonetheless, increasing agricultural productivity amongst smallholder farms is an important way to improve farmer livelihoods in the developing world.

Not all effects of climate change will negatively affect agricultural productivity. The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land and the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C both project mixed changes in the yields of crops as global warming happens with some breadbasket regions becoming less productive, while other crops increase ranges and productivity.

See also

References

Citations

Cited sources

  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – www.fao.org
  • OECD Department for Trade and Agriculture: Food, Agriculture and Fisheries
  • OECD Agricultural Outlook Database (2006–2015)