1,721,209 research outputs found
Agricultura, seguridad alimentaria, desarrollo y proteccion ambiental: Un futuro para Honduraas basado en la ciencia, tecnologia e innovacion
No full textLos sistemas agrícolas han jugado un papel crítico en la seguridad alimentaria de la humanidad. A lo largo de la historia, se han logrado avances significativos en la seguridad alimentaria, incluyendo reducir la proporción de personas que padecen de hambre, la desnutrición, y la prevalencia en los retrasos en el crecimiento infantil. Sin embargo, hay evidencia que estos logros están revirtiendo debido a desaceleraciones en la producción y la productividad agrícola, y las interacciones con las crisis existenciales de salud, sostenibilidad y gobernanza.IFPRI5; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies;EPTD; PIM38 pagesCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)
Measures of fixed capital in agriculture
Get PDFCapital is a fundamental component of agricultural production, and the accumulation of capital is key to growth in agriculture and the process of development. Unfortunately, cross-country data sets on agricultural fixed capital are rare. Using a common methodology that allows comparisons across countries, as well as over time, this paper introduces a data series on fixed capital in agriculture, based on national accounts data. The fixed capital measure differs remarkably from the Food and Agriculture Organization's data series on tractors, which has been widely utilized as a proxy for agricultural fixed capital. The authors construct comparable measures of capital in livestock and tree stock. They examine the evolution of the capital stocks from 1970 to 2000, paying particular attention to the changing composition of agricultural capital, as well as differences in the accumulation of capital for high-income and middle and lower-income countries. Using the capital measures in agricultural productivity analyses, the data yield estimated input elasticities substantially different from those found previously in the literature. The authors show explicitly that this is due to the improved data set on agricultural capital stocks, as well as the methodology used in the study.Economic Theory&Research,Investment and Investment Climate,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Economic Growth,Emerging Markets
Agricultural Total Factor Productivity (TFP), 1991-2014: 2018 Global Food Policy Report Annex Table 5
No full textIncreasing the efficiency of agricultural production—getting more output from the same amount of resources—is critical for improving food security. To measure the efficiency of agricultural systems, we use total factor productivity (TFP). TFP is an indicator of how efficiently agricultural land, labor, capital, and materials (agricultural inputs) are used to produce a country’s crops and livestock (agricultural output)—it is calculated as the ratio of total agricultural output to total production inputs. When more output is produced from a constant amount of resources, meaning that resources are being used more efficiently, TFP increases. Measures of land and labor productivity—partial factor productivity (PFP) measures—are calculated as the ratio of total output to total agricultural area (land productivity) and to the number of economically active persons in agriculture (labor productivity). Because PFP measures are easy to estimate, they are often used to measure agricultural production performance. These measures normally show higher rates of growth than TFP, because growth in land and labor productivity can result not only from increases in TFP but also from a more intensive use of other inputs (such as fertilizer or machinery). Indicators of both TFP and PFP contribute to the understanding of agricultural systems needed for policy and investment decisions by allowing for comparisons across time and across countries and regions.
The data file provides estimates of IFPRI's TFP and PFP measures for developing countries for three-sub-periods between 1991 and 2014(1991-2000,2001-2010 and 2010-2014). These TFP and PFP estimates were generated using the most recent data on outputs and inputs from the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (ERS-USDA), an internationally consistent and comparable dataset on production and input quantities built using data from the FAOSTAT database of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), supplemented with data from national statistical sources.IFPRI1; Open Access;EPTD
Keeping track of agricultural TFP growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
Get PDFThis paper revisits TFP growth in SubSaharan Africa (SSA) during 19712003 and analyzes the recent evolution and performance of different subregions and individual countries. Agriculture TFP growth is determined by the estimation of a Malmquist index. Our estimates show that there is a clear improvement in the performance of the agricultural sector in SubSaharan Africa starting in 1993, improvement that has been sustained for 10 years. This growth is explained mainly by an increase in efficiency, which can be interpreted as catching up that the region is doing after 20 years of poor performance and decreased efficiency. The fact that most countries are recovering from periods of negative growth and only catching up to TFP levels they had in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and that technical change has been slow are warning signs that indicate that growth will need to be extended to technical change to make TFP growth sustainable in the long run
The role of extension and financial services in boosting the effect of innovation investments for reducing poverty and hunger: A DEA approach
Get PDFConsidering the new opportunities that ICT innovations bring to improve performance of financial and extension services, this study looks at the potential contribution of financial and extension services to the SDGs. The approach used extends the standard Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to include longer-term management goals and find a solution that balances the efficient use of innovation investments and the achievement of policy goals, making this approach well suited for the analysis of the SDGs
Agricultural R&D investment intensity: A misleading conventional measure and a new intensity index
No full textThe conventional wisdom that developing countries are significantly underinvesting in agricultural research and development (R&D) has been challenged by studies that found that the high rates of return in the literature result from data limitations and inadequate modeling choices. However, evidence of low research effort in developing countries as measured by the intensity ratio (IR)—the percentage of agricultural gross domestic product invested in agricultural R&D—has not been questioned. This article argues that the IR is an inadequate indicator of research effort and proposes an alternative index to measure R&D intensity. Using the proposed index, we find that the investment effort in developing countries is much higher than the one observed when the IR is used, that the contribution of low‐ and middle‐income (LMI) countries to growth in global R&D intensity was higher to that of high‐income (HI) countries in recent years, that the investment gap in LMI countries is close to 50% of R&D investment, and that the proposed development goal of a 1.0% value of the IR is beyond the possibilities of most Asian and African countries
Agricultural intensification in Africa: A regional analysis
No full textThis study assesses the patterns of agricultural intensification in 40 African countries looking at the role fertilizer plays in the process. We propose a set of indicators that uses information on available agricultural land and land suitability to measure intensity of land use in agricultural production. Results show that half of the countries in our sample, those with low population density, have followed a land-abundant intensification path with growth driven by new land incorporated to crop production and increased cropping intensity through the reduction of fallow periods and increased double cropping
Comparing apples to apples: A new indicator of research and development investment intensity in agriculture
No full textIt has been apparent for more than a century that future economic progress in agriculture will be driven by the invention and application of new technologies resulting from expenditure in research and development (R&D) by governments and private firms. Nevertheless, it is conventional wisdom in the economic development literature that there is a significant underinvestment in agricultural R&D in developing countries. Evidence supporting this belief is provided, first by a vast literature showing returns on R&D expenditure to be so high as to justify levels of investment in multiples of those actually found, and second, from available data showing low research effort in developing countries as measured by the intensity ratio (IR), that is, the percentage of agricultural gross domestic product invested in agricultural R&D (excluding the for-profit private sector). This paper argues that the IR is an inadequate indicator to measure and compare the research efforts of a diverse group of countries and proposes an alternative index that allows meaningful comparisons between countries. The proposed index can be used to identify potential under-investors, determine intensity gaps, and quantify the R&D investment needed to close these gaps by comparing countries with similar characteristics. Results obtained using the new R&D intensity indicator with a sample of 88 countries show that the investment effort in developing countries is much higher than the one observed using the conventional IR measure. The new measure finds that countries like China, India, Brazil, and Kenya have similar levels of R&D intensity to those in the United States. To close the R&D intensity gap measured by the new index, developing countries will need to invest US21.4 billion invested on average during 2008–2011, an increase of 33 percent of total actual investment
Agricultural growth, efficiency and family agriculture in Paraguay
No full textBetween 2001 and 2012, Latin America and the Caribbean’s (LAC) agriculture saw its best performance of the last 30 years. What were the implications of this growth for family agriculture (FA) in the region? This study contributes to answer this question by looking at the case of Paraguay, a country with one of the fastest growing agricultural sectors in the region during this period. At the center of the development challenges faced by this country is the debate on the role of family agriculture and smallholders in a future growth strategy. Between 1991 and 2008 the number of family workers in agriculture decreased significantly, while the total area of FA crops decreased to only 48 percent of its level in 1991. As some authors argued in the past, the 2000s represent a turning point for FA development in Paraguay, given that until 2002, the total area of farms of less than 20 hectares was still increasing, a trend that reversed after this year. Are these changes, part of a process of impoverishment of the rural population resulting from displacement of FA by the commercial sector as is normally assumed in previous studies? Evidence from this study shows that rural poverty decreased almost by half between 2003 and 2015; that the reduction of output of crops traditionally produced by FA was not the result of competition with the commercial sector, but mostly a consequence of the collapse of cotton production, a failure of a government program for FA; and that in regions with high proportion of FA, commercial crop production expanded by displacing inefficient extensive livestock farmers and not FA agriculture. We conclude that the situation of FA in Paraguay is much more diverse and complex than the simple claims of decomposition and disappearance as the result of the expansion of capitalist farmers. In this context, there are options for the government to promote the development of FA with the goal of increasing employment opportunities in rural areas while achieving a much-needed diversification of agricultural production and exports
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