2021-10-25 19:46:08
#AGRICULTURE
■ Global Agricultural Productivity Report (GAP Report) -
The 2021 Global Agricultural Productivity Report (GAP Report), “Strengthening the Climate for Sustainable Agricultural Growth,” was released by Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
It urges the acceleration of productivity growth from smallholders to large-scale farmers to meet consumers’ needs and address current and future threats to human and environmental well-being.
The theme of the 2021 GAP Report encompasses the changing climate on agricultural productivity and strengthening the policy and investment landscape to invigorate productivity growth and adaptation to climate change.
● Key points of report:
Global agricultural productivity is not growing as fast as the demand for food, amid the impact of climate change.
Total factor productivity (TFP) is growing at an annual rate of 1.36 per cent (2020-2019).
This is below the Global Agricultural Productivity Index that has set an annual target of 1.73 per cent growth to sustainably meet the needs of consumers for food and bioenergy in 2050.
TFP tracks changes in how efficiently agricultural inputs such as land, labour, fertiliser, feed, machinery and livestock are transformed into outputs like crops, livestock and aquaculture products.
TFP growth is influenced by climate change, weather events, changes in fiscal policy, market conditions, investments in infrastructure and agricultural research and development.
The report noted that middle-income countries including India, China, Brazil and erstwhile Soviet republics continued to have strong TFP growth rates.
However, in low-income countries, nearly all agricultural output growth comes from land-use change and forest and grassland destruction for cultivation and grazing.
As a result, TFP in low-income countries was contracting by an average of 0.31 per cent per year, the report found.
Policy reforms in the 1980s and 1990s generated respectable TFP growth in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the report.
But the region had been unable to sustain or improve TFP growth due to minimal investments in agricultural research and development (R&D).
High-income countries, including those in North America and Europe, showed modest TFP growth according to the report.
In the US, agricultural output had increased 36 per cent since 1982 due to the widespread adoption of efficient irrigation and precision agriculture.
● Indian scenario:
India has seen strong TFP and output growth this century.
The most recent data shows an average annual TFP growth rate of 2.81 per cent and output growth of 3.17 per cent (2010–2019).
This rapidly rising temperature, combined with changes in rainfall patterns, could cut yields for India’s major food crops by 10% by 2035.
64 viewsNisha Lohia, 16:46
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