Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Output
Productivity
Inputs
2
1
0
1948
1955
1962
1969
1976
1983
1990
1997
2004
2011
Figure 13.1
. Changes in agricultural output, inputs, and total factor productivity in the
United States, 1948-2011. Total factor productivity refers to gains in output that were not
embodied in added inputs. Redrawn from ERS (2012a).
since 1980 (Gardner 2002). Rises in productivity combined with farm consolida-
tion have contributed to both a sharp growth in the number of consumers sup-
ported by each U.S. farmer and some of the world's lowest food expenditures as
a proportion of income.
Rising agricultural productivity has, however, been accompanied by envi-
ronmental harm. In particular, large quantities of agrochemicals applied to farm
fields miss their targets (Snapp et al. 2010), escaping to cause environmental
damage elsewhere. To farmers, these wasted input costs are offset by the value
of increased output. But the cost to society is large, as documented for pesti-
cides (Paul et al. 2002) and nitrogen (Secchi et al. 2007) in ground and sur-
face waters, including hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico (Alexander et al. 2008).
Agricultural mechanization has been another driver of productivity gains. Yet
the removal of field borders to facilitate mechanized farming has resulted in
fewer field edges and reduced biodiversity in areas of highly productive farm-
land (Meehan et al. 2011).
Evidence of environmental damage from agriculture, especially to water qual-
ity, led to a series of U.S. environmental programs for agriculture during the 1980s
and 1990s. For croplands, these programs either paid to remove environmentally
sensitive land from crop production (e.g., the Conservation Reserve Program
[CRP]) or shared farmer costs of improving environmental performance (e.g.,
Environmental Quality Incentives Program [EQIP], Wildlife Habitat Incentives
Program [WHIP], and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program [CREP]).
The potential for agriculture to provide beneficial ecosystem services (Daily
1997) was increasingly recognized during the first decade of the 2000s. Managing
