Leveraging total factor productivity growth for sustainable and resilient farming

By Oliver T. Coomes, B. Barham, G. MacDonald, Navin Ramankutty, Jean-Paul Chavas. Nature Sustainability, 2019

176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Increased global agricultural output since the 1990s has been largely driven by innovations that raised the efficiency of use of labour, land, capital and other inputs—referred to as total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Yet debates over the future of farming still weigh heavily on models of agricultural land use and socioecological trade-offs along traditional (partial factor productivity) growth paths of ‘intensification’ or ‘extensification’. Overlooking the role of TFP in the evolution of global agriculture not only obscures the changing drivers of productivity growth but also misses vital linkages with agricultural sustainability and farming system resilience. We describe two pathways for growth—technology-based and ecosystem-based—and link these in a heuristic framework that emphasizes sustainability and resilience outcomes in farming systems. Interdisciplinary research is urgently needed to empirically examine the dynamic interplay of TFP growth, farming system sustainability and resilience. Such insights will help to transform TFP growth as metric into actionable efforts on farms and beyond.Since the 1990s, global agricultural output has been driven largely by innovations that raised the efficiency of using labour, land and other inputs, together called total factor productivity (TFP). This Perspective discusses this reality and suggests two pathways for future growth: technology-based and ecosystem-based. Future research on farm-system sustainability and resilience should leverage these options.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c3ce0e44a118724d208115119d6f5e7b023a539d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. Sanzidur Rahman
2. Lindsay W. Bell
3. L. Klerkx

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

1. R. Garrett
2. Sanzidur Rahman
3. Lindsay W. Bell
4. L. Klerkx

Citations in the corpus

• Drivers of decoupling and recoupling of crop and livestock systems at farm and territorial scales (2020, background): “ICLS may also enhance ecosystem services both on-and off-farm, for example, erosion control and nutrient cycling, and increase farm productivity as a function of all inputs, i.e., total factor productivity (Coomes et al. 2019).”
• Agricultural Productivity Growth and Its Determinants in South and Southeast Asian Countries (2020, background): “First, there is increasing domestic and foreign demand for food due to continued economic growth, rising population and increasing involvement in international trade [4,9].”