Over the past six decades, most regions of the world transitioned from a natural resource-dependent to a productivity-led agricultural growth path, made possible by developing and adopting new technologies and farming practices. This new USDA-ERS report documents these changes, providing insights into shifting patterns of agricultural production and resource use worldwide. It shows the evolution of agricultural growth over time and discusses the implications of these dynamics for the sustainable use of natural resources and global food security.
During this period, world production of crop, livestock, and aquaculture commodities grew fourfold, from a gross value of 1.1 trillion to 4.3 trillion dollars (at constant 2015 commodity prices). At the same time, land in global agriculture increased by only 8%, from 4.43 to 4.76 billion hectares. The share of agricultural production in the Global South increased from 44% in 1961 to 73% percent in 2020. The use of inorganic fertilizers, especially those based on nitrogen, expanded rapidly during the 1960s through the 1980s, but since the 1990s it has increased at about the same rate as agricultural output.
Increases in agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) – a key efficiency indicator that measures total agricultural output relative to the total inputs of land, labor, capital, and materials – reduced the intensity of natural resource use in agriculture. Between 1990 and 2020, the global average amount of land used and greenhouse gasses emitted per unit of agricultural output fell by half or more.
The report raises two major concerns. First, the world agricultural TFP growth rate increased from less than 0.1% per year in 1961–70 to nearly 2.0% per year on average by 2001–10. In comparison, TFP growth has slowed to an average of only 1.1% per year during 2011–20. This increases the risk of greater land and/or input expansion as drivers of food production, with often negative consequences for the environment, calling for greater efforts and investments in technological innovations, better practices and supporting policies. Second, Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged far behind the rest of the world in agricultural productivity. Underinvestment in agricultural research and development, limited access by farmers to capital, inputs, new technologies and markets, and weak agricultural extension systems are a few of the major constraints to improving farm productivity in this region.
