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"agricultural productivity"
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Climate change effects on agriculture: Economic responses to biophysical shocks
Agricultural production is sensitive to weather and thus directly affected by climate change. Plausible estimates of these climate change impacts require combined use of climate, crop, and economic models. Results from previous studies vary substantially due to differences in models, scenarios, and data. This paper is part of a collective effort to systematically integrate these three types of models. We focus on the economic component of the assessment, investigating how nine global economic models of agriculture represent endogenous responses to seven standardized climate change scenarios produced by two climate and five crop models. These responses include adjustments in yields, area, consumption, and international trade. We apply biophysical shocks derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s representative concentration pathway with end-of-century radiative forcing of 8.5 W/m2. The mean biophysical yield effect with no incremental CO2 fertilization is a 17% reduction globally by 2050 relative to a scenario with unchanging climate. Endogenous economic responses reduce yield loss to 11%, increase area of major crops by 11%, and reduce consumption by 3%. Agricultural production, cropland area, trade, and prices show the greatest degree of variability in response to climate change, and consumption the lowest. The sources of these differences include model structure and specification; in particular, model assumptions about ease of land use conversion, intensification, and trade. This study identifies where models disagree on the relative responses to climate shocks and highlights research activities needed to improve the representation of agricultural adaptation responses to climate change.
Journal Article
Agricultural productivity and producer behavior
\"Agriculture plays a key role in economic growth and development. As recently as 1800, more than half the population in most European countries worked on farms and in fields, though this shifted with the industrial revolution. Agricultural efficiencies were not immediately apparent until the middle of the 20th century when yields began to increase and they have continued to grow at a steady pace since. At the same time, inflation-adjusted agricultural commodity prices have been trending downward as increases in supply outpaced increases in demand. Food is an essential good, and while its price is currently low due to its abundance, it is responsible for a large consumer surplus given the highly inelastic demand. Understanding the factors that contribute to the upward trend in yields is of first-order importance for food security and human welfare. This book contains eight chapters that examine the factors behind the remarkably steady increase in yields around the globe, in order to better understand whether this trend can continue into the future and whether it will impose significant environmental externalities. The volume provides fresh and original analyses using methodological innovations to analyze recently available micro-level data sets\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Sustainable Crop Farm Productivity: Weather Effects, Technology Adoption, and Farm Management
The main purpose of this study is to understand the potential determinants of sustainable field crop farm productivity. This paper considers a multi-input, multi-output production technology to estimate the effects of aridity on farm-level productivity using a stochastic input distance function. By isolating the respective weather components of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP), we can better assess the impact on productivity of adopting various technologies and farm practices that might otherwise be masked by changing climate conditions or weather shocks. We make use of data from Phase 3 of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) between 2006 and 2020. We supplement this estimation using field crop farm productivity determinants, including technology adoption and farm practice variables derived from the ARMS Phase 2 data. We identify several factors that affect farm productivity, including many practices that help farmers make more sustainable use of natural resources. The results show that adopting yield monitoring technology, fallowing in previous years, adding or improving tile drainage, and contour farming each improved farm productivity. In particular, during our study period, conservation tillage increased by over 300% across states on average. It is estimated to increase productivity level by approximately 3% for those adopting this practice. Critically, accounting for local weather effects increased the estimated productivity of nearly all farm practices and increased the statistical significance of several variables, indicating that other TFP studies that did not account for climate or weather effects may have underestimated the technical efficiency of farms that adopted these conservation practices. However, the results also show the impacts can be heterogeneous, with effects varying between farms located in the U.S. northern or southern regions.
Journal Article
Science and sustainable food security : selected papers of M S Swaminathan
This book provides a roadmap for achieving sustainable agricultural advance and food security in an era of climate change and global economic melt-down. The contents include a description of the paradigm shift under the leadership of the author, from a green to an ever-green revolution necessary for advancing productivity in perpetuity without ecological harm. Science and Sustainable Food Security shows many methods of linking ecological security with livelihood security, and provides a scientific basis for entering an era of biohappiness based on the sustainable and equitable use of biodiversity. Also, methods of adaptation to the impact of global warming are described. This book will prove invaluable to all interested in sustainable human security and happiness.
Book
The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture
The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture is FAO's first flagship publication on the global status of land and water resources. It is an 'advocacy' report, to be published every three to five years, and targeted at senior level decision makers in agriculture as well as in other sectors. SOLAW is aimed at sensitizing its target audience on the status of land resources at global and regional levels and FAO's viewpoint on appropriate recommendations for policy formulation. SOLAW focuses on these key dimensions of analysis: (i) quantity, quality of land and water resources, (ii) the rate of use and sustainable management of these resources in the context of relevant socio-economic driving factors and concerns, including food security and poverty, and climate change.
This is the first time that a global, baseline status report on land and water resources has been made. It is based on several global spatial databases (e.g. land suitability for agriculture, land use and management, land and water degradation and depletion) for which FAO is the world-recognized data source. Topical and emerging issues on land and water are dealt with in an integrated rather than sectoral manner. The implications of the status and trends are used to advocate remedial interventions which are tailored to major farming systems within different geographic regions.
eBook
Feeding the world
Presents facts about farming on a global scale, including different climates and economies.
Book
THE IMPACT OF PRO-SMALL FARMLAND POLICIES ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY GAPS
This study investigates how agricultural policy distortions cause countries to deviate from optimal production levels, thereby widening agricultural productivity gaps both within and between nations. Using the Leontief production function under a comparative framework, we examine how country-specific national endowments shape agricultural policies, bringing about varied misallocations and distinct agricultural productivity gaps across countries. Developing countries typically misallocate excessive labor to farmland, resulting in small-scale farming, whereas developed countries often allocate surplus capital to farmland, favoring large-scale operations. This divergence in resource allocation not only widens agricultural productivity gaps within nations but also amplifies them between developing and developed countries.
Journal Article
Understanding the Indian Economy from the Post-Reforms of 1991
The agricultural sector is impacted by and impacts the society, economy, and environment. No study of the Indian economy can afford to neglect the agricultural sector. Although its share in the national product has declined, it harbors not merely half of the labor force; it has also vital supply and demand links with the manufacturing sector.
This is the third volume in the series of eight such volumes. Each volume seeks to present an analysis of a specific area or sector of the Indian economy. This volume examines various aspects of India's agricultural sector.
Three of the basic foundations needed for building a sound agricultural economy are a productive technology package, efficient delivery services, and remunerative and stable market prices for produce. The federal structure of government and policies belong primarily to the realm of political economy. Policy interventions need to focus on ensuring remunerative prices for farmers, credit, supply chain, and marketing and make the farmer market ready.
Though policymaking is difficult, the toolkit of good governance of agriculture becomes more important and regulations need improvement. For better policy planning, there is a need to improve upon the database on agriculture, considering that the existing data is unreliable.
eBook