Agricultural Investment And Productivity

Includes 8 papers by various authors.

Investing in agriculture is one of the most effective ways of reducing hunger and poverty, promoting agricultural productivity and enhancing environmental sustainability. Covering the development of sustainable agriculture, food production and food security, this paper explains the relationship between all levels of investment and their interdependence to be successful. It also describes how to drive increased investment, at what stage and where, providing a useful overview of investment in agriculture for policymakers and researchers.

Agricultural Investment and Productivity provides a deep and systematic look at the opportunities for and constraints to investments in sustainable agriculture in East Africa, offering important insights into what works and how to analyze agricultural investments in one of the poorest regions of the world. The book critically examines the reasons behind East Africa's stagnant agricultural productivity over the past forty-five years, using the primary lens of investments in fertilizers, seeds, and sustainable land management technologies, These investments have a tremendous impact on production volume, ultimately affecting the income of millions of families throughout the region.

gricultural science policy in the United States has profoundly affected the growth and development of agriculture worldwide, not just in the A United States. Over the past 150 years, and especially over the second th half of the 20 Century, public investments in agricultural R&D in the United States grew faster than the value of agricultural production. Public spending on agricultural science grew similarly in other more-developed countries, and c- lectively these efforts, along with private spending, spurred agricultural prod- tivity growth in rich and poor nations alike. The value of this investment is seldom fully appreciated. The resulting p- ductivity improvements have released labor and other resources for alternative uses—in 1900, 29. 2 million Americans (39 percent of the population) were - rectly engaged in farming compared with just 2. 9 million (1. 1 percent) today— while making food and fiber more abundant and cheaper. The benefits are not confined to Americans. U. S. agricultural science has contributed with others to growth in agricultural productivity in many other countries as well as the Un- ed States. The world’s population more than doubled from around 3 billion in 1961 to 6. 54 billion in 2006 (U. S. Census Bureau 2009). Over the same period, production of important grain crops (including maize, wheat and rice) almost trebled, such that global per capita grain production was 18 percent higher in 2006.

Increasing food prices have renewed concerns about long-term agricultural demand and supply in the global economy. This book looks at results, methods, and data on international agricultural productivity for a better understanding of long-run trends and the policies that determine them. By presenting an international assessment of total factor productivity growth in agriculture, including up-to-date empirical analysis for developed and developing countries and regions, it provides a response to the rising global scarcity of agricultural production. It is essential reading for researchers, poli.

Agricultural yields have increased steadily in the last half century, particularly since the Green Revolution. At the same time, inflation-adjusted agricultural commodity prices have been trending downward as increases in supply outpace the growth of demand. Recent severe weather events, biofuel mandates, and a switch toward a more meat-heavy diet in emerging economies have nevertheless boosted commodity prices. Whether this is a temporary jump or the beginning of a longer-term trend is an open question. Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior examines the factors contributing to the remarkably steady increase in global yields and assesses whether yield growth can continue. This research also considers whether agricultural productivity growth has been, and will be, associated with significant environmental externalities. Among the topics studied are genetically modified crops; changing climatic factors; farm production responses to government regulations including crop insurance, transport subsidies, and electricity subsidies for groundwater extraction; and the role of specific farm practices such as crop diversification, disease management, and water-saving methods. This research provides new evidence that technological as well as policy choices influence agricultural productivity.

This study highlights how, through a series of scenarios, public investments promoting agricultural productivity in Uganda could drive growth in agrifood production, with favourable impacts on the economy, on well-being and on poverty, especially in rural areas. Using a modelling tool to represent the Ugandan economy, with its multiple sectors and current fiscal constraints, the study ranked the subsectors of Uganda’s agriculture that, through the productivity impact of public investments representing 0.25 percent of GDP (on average, about 373 billion 2017 Uganda shillings) during the years 2023–2025, will generate the greatest socio-economic benefits, maximizing the cost-effectiveness of the public investments. Generally, economic growth and the welfare of households, as measured by their consumption, will be positively impacted, but the impacts will ultimately depend on the sector that receives the investment, which is shown in a ranking. The agricultural sectors targeted for government investment will increase their output (and food prices will thus fall), and this will stimulate growth in non-agricultural sectors, both by increasing final demand for non-agricultural products and by lowering input prices and fostering upstream processing. Lower food prices will have a significant impact since food represents a relatively large proportion of the consumption basket of poorest households. Furthermore, labour income for rural households will increase with productivity growth, and this will reduce rural poverty. The findings of this study provide important information about the priorities of Uganda’s National Development Plan (NDP) III and vision for agriculture, as well as new priorities to be considered for enabling economic recovery with increased well-being post-COVID-19.

This report reviews economic concepts of innovation, research and development (R&D), productivity and competitiveness, and their linkages in agriculture.