Five Decades of Productivity and Efficiency Changes in World Agriculture (1969–2013)

Asif Reza Anik,Jaba Rani Sarker,Sanzidur Rahman

doi:10.3390/agriculture10060200

Abstract

The present study applied the Färe–Primont index approach to estimate the total factor productivity (TFP) growth of world agriculture, covering the period 1969–2013. Overall, the world agricultural TFP grew at a rate of 0.44% p.a. This growth was mainly contributed to by technological progress and mix efficiency changes, while the contributions of technical efficiency and scale efficiency changes were negligible. TFP growth varied across regions, with South Asia at the top of the list (1.05% p.a.), and East Asia and the Pacific (0.18% p.a.) at the bottom. TFP components exerted differential influences amongst regions. For instance, mix efficiency played a dominant role in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, whereas it was technical efficiency change in Latin America and the Caribbean region. The paper argues for region specific policy interventions emphasizing technical progress through investment in R&D and price and non-price interventions to improve economies of scope and scale of operation in the agricultural sector.

Highlights

Agriculture is a source of food, and a source of vast employment and rural development; its development and growth have always been and will remain one of the topmost priority agendas in the development arena, for the policy makers in the least developed and developing countries
The level of total factor productivity (TFP), i.e., the ratio of aggregate output to aggregate input, was estimated at 0.20, implying that more aggregate inputs are needed to produce one unit of aggregate output, whereas the estimated technical efficiency of 0.91 implies that aggregate output could be increased by about 10% by removing inefficiency in production alone (Table 2)
0.29 (Table 2), implies that countries are not doing well in terms of reaping the benefits of economies of scope. This suggests that there has been an upward shift in the production possibility frontier, most likely driven by innovation and the adoption of technologies, such as the Green Revolution technologies that created world-wide impact during 1980s, arguing that farmers are rationally adjusting the scale but lag behind in terms of deriving economies of scale

Summary

Introduction

Agriculture is a source of food, and a source of vast employment and rural development; its development and growth have always been and will remain one of the topmost priority agendas in the development arena, for the policy makers in the least developed and developing countries. This is because food security is one of the prime goals of the governments of these countries. Shane et al [4] provided empirical evidence that gaining agricultural productivity is the most effective strategy for poverty alleviation. At the global level, the sector has lost its previous importance, in terms of contribution to GDP and employment generation

Methods

Results

Conclusion