USDA Report Shows Agricultural Productivity Advances Across All Global regions

Continued progress in improving agricultural productivity -- producing more output from a unit of aggregate inputs -- is key to meeting expanding global food needs.

Total factor productivity (TFP) in agriculture is an indicator of the rate of technical change based on a comprehensive measure of the amount of output attained from all of the land, labor, capital, and material resources employed in production.

Over the 2002-2011 decade, agricultural TFP rose in every region of the world. In all regions except Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, gains in TFP accounted for most of the increase in agricultural output.

In regions like Europe, Oceania, and North America, positive TFP growth compensated for declining input use to keep output growth positive in all cases except Europe.

While Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa achieved the most rapid expansion in agricultural output over the decade, the former Soviet Union, Asia, and West Asia/North Africa regions recorded the most rapid gains in TFP.

Estimates of TFP growth are derived by ERS using data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.