Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio ofagricultural outputs to inputs.[1] While individual products are usually measured by weight, which is known ascrop yield, varying products make measuring overall agricultural output difficult. Therefore, agricultural productivity is usually measured as themarket 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.[2]
Agricultural productivity may also be measured by what is termedtotal 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.[3]
Agricultural productivity is an important component offood security.[4] Increasing agricultural productivity throughsustainable practices can be an important way to decrease the amount of land needed for farming and slowenvironmental degradation andclimate change through processes likedeforestation.[5]
Productivity is driven by changes in either agricultural technique or improvements in technology. Some sources of changes in agricultural productivity have included:[7]
See:Productivity improving technologies (historical) Section: 2.4.1: Mechanization: Agriculture, Section 2.6: Scientific agriculture.
The productivity of a region'sfarms is important for many reasons. Aside from providing morefood, 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 moreefficient 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.[10]
As a region's farms become more productive, itscomparative advantage in agricultural products increases, which means that it can produce these products at a loweropportunity cost than can other regions.[11] Therefore, the region becomes more competitive on the world market, which means that it can attract moreconsumers 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 inreal income elsewhere.[12]
Increases in agricultural productivity lead also to agricultural growth and can help to alleviatepoverty in poor anddeveloping 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.[13]
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.[13]
Agricultural productivity is becoming increasingly important as theworld population continues to grow.[14] As agricultural productivity grows, food prices decrease, allowing people to spend less on food, and combatting hunger.[15]India, one of the world's most populous countries, has taken steps in the past decades to increase its land productivity. In the 1960sNorth India produced onlywheat, but with the advent of the earlier maturing high-yielding wheats andrices, the wheat could be harvested in time to plant rice. This wheat/rice combination is now widely used throughout thePunjab,Haryana, and parts ofUttar Pradesh. The wheat yield of three tons and rice yield of two tons combine for five tons of grain perhectare, helping to feed India's 1.1 billion people.[14]
Higher global food prices between 2006 and 2008, primarily caused by an increasing amountarable land used for growingbiofuels and the growing economies in China and elsewhere causing an increase in demand for meat products (which are less efficient than plants in terms of land use), caused the percentage of incomes used for food to increase throughout the world, forcing families to cut back on various other expenditures such as schooling for girls. In areas of sub-Saharan Africa, a decreased agricultural productivity due to crop failures has caused starvation.[15] On the other hand, higher global prices actually mean farmers with successful yields earn more, and this thus increases their productivity.[16]
Investing in the agricultural productivity of women in farming communities is of particular importance in boostingeconomic development and food security in parts of thedeveloping 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.[15]
Some critics claim that increasing agricultural productivity results inhuman overpopulation. They are argue that, like other species, human populations grow up to theircarrying capacity. When a species reaches its carrying capacity, the number ofpoor and weak individuals who die from disease or starvation is equal to the number of individuals being added to the population via birth. Because innovation continues to improve agricultural productivity (specifically yields), however, the theoretical carrying capacity continues to increase, allowing the human population to continue to grow. These writers claim that there are too many people on Earth and that therefore growth in agricultural productivity is detrimental to theenvironment — if the carrying capacity was lower, the human population would reach an equilibrium at a lower number.[17][18]
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.[19][20]
Deolalikar in 1981 investigated the theory first proposed by Sen in 1975 that in traditional, pre-modern farming inIndia, there is an inverse relationship to size of the farm and productivity, contrary to theeconomy of scale found in all other types of economic activity. It is debated whether the inverse relationship actually exists. Numerous studies falsify this theory.[21] InZimbabwe, policies onagrarian land reform under presidentRobert Mugabe, especially in and following 2000, split large farms into many smaller farms, and this decreased productivity.Marxist agrarian land reform in theSoviet Union,China andVietnam combined small farms into larger units, this usually failed to increase productivity.[22]
Nonetheless, increasing agricultural productivity amongstsmallholder farms is an important way to improve farmer livelihoods in thedeveloping world.[5]
Becauseagriculture has such significant impacts on climate change and otherenvironmental issues,intensification of agriculture, which would increase productivity per amount of land being farmed, is seen by some as an essential method forclimate change mitigation, because farmers will not require more land, and are thus incentivized not to participate in furtherland degradation ordeforestation.[5] Implementing intensification throughsustainable agriculture practices makes farming more sustainable in the long term, maintaining the ability of future generations to meet their own needs while conserving the environment. International policy, embodied inSustainable Development Goal 2, focuses on improving these practices at a global level.[23]
Not alleffects of climate change will negatively affect agricultural productivity. The IPCCSpecial Report on Climate Change and Land and theSpecial Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C both project mixed changes in the yields of crops asglobal warming happens with somebreadbasket regions becoming less productive, while other crops increase ranges and productivity.[24]
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