Evaluating research and education performance in Indian agricultural development

India's agricultural research spending has long been regionally uneven. Regional research intensity ratios, which account for size differences, indicate research spending has consistently favored southern and western states over northern, central, and eastern ones. Farm production patterns have, however, changed in recent years and regional output growth is being driven by new commodity mixes. In this article, we ask which region had the highest factor productivity growth and rate of return to investments in public agricultural research and higher education. Our analysis relies on a 1980–2008 Indian agricultural production and policy data set together with a dual heteroscedastic production frontier to decompose total factor productivity (TFP) growth into formal technical progress and efficiency elements. The model's regional flexibility affords region‐to‐region comparison of multiple research return rates, TFP growth, and the elements influencing them. Regardless of return‐rate measure or allocation scenario evaluated, the North has enjoyed the highest return to research spending, and the Central and East the lowest. Factor productivity growth has however been strongest in the South, primarily on account of efficiency gains. Overall, though, the technical progress and productivity growth easily attributable to government‐supported research has accounted for about one‐quarter of the sector's TFP growth.     

The Current State of the Russian Agricultural Sector

Russia's agriculture produces around 3.7 per cent of the country's GDP, employs 9.2 per cent of the national workforce and contributes around 6 per cent of the country's exports. The sector has shown remarkable resilience in the face of wider economic turbulence. Self‐sufficiency rates for the main agricultural commodities are relatively high. Agricultural exports have grown very significantly since 2000 especially for wheat and meslin (wheat and rye mixture). Meat production has been growing steadily, particularly in the poultry and pork sectors. Whilst the agri‐food sector has great potential to play an even more prominent role in Russia's economy, it suffers from relatively low productivity and an outdated technological base. The main drive for efficiency has come mainly from the relatively large‐scale agricultural firms, who generated more than half of the total value of agricultural output in 2016. Foreign policy instability, including economic sanctions, the devaluation of the national currency and declining economic growth have weakened the sector and caused an increase in the prices of imported goods and equipment. At the same time Russian products have replaced high value‐added imports and Russia's agricultural producers are expanding into new markets.     

Agricultural policy and productivity: evidence from Brazilian censuses

Brazil's economic strategy has shifted hesitatingly during the last several decades from one of producer protection to trade competitiveness. Exploiting the variations these shifts have afforded, we use a sequence of decennial agricultural censuses to examine Brazilian policy implications for agricultural competitiveness and efficiency. Total factor productivity is decomposed into best‐technology and efficiency elements, each subject to policy influence. We find technology growth, at 4.5% per annum, to have been extraordinarily high, particularly in the south. But because productivity among average producers has fallen rapidly behind that on the technical frontier, total productivity growth has been a much more modest 2.6% per year. Public agricultural research programs most benefit the country's technological leaders, widening the gap between frontier and average producer. Credit, education, and road construction policies instead narrow that gap. Credit and road programs especially enhance efficiency in the south, where efficiency losses have been greatest.     

要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率空间影响效应分解研究

目的 通过对要素市场扭曲下的农业全要素生产率的系统分析,以期为提升农业全要素生产率以及要素市场改革进程中的中国农业可持续发展提供参考。方法 文章基于资本、劳动力、土地等要素市场严重扭曲的事实,利用1997—2018年中国28个省（ 市、自治区）面板数据,通过构建空间计量模型检验要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率的空间影响及其溢出效应。结果 中国资本市场、劳动力市场、土地等要素市场扭曲度比较高,同时呈现显著地区差异;中国农业全要素生产率增长以技术进步驱动为主,大多数省份的技术效率不高,同时呈现出东部地区高于中西部地区的区域不平衡特点;要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率的影响为负,资本市场、劳动力市场、土地等要素市场扭曲在一定程度上阻碍农业全要素生产率的提升;要素市场扭曲对全要素生产率具有一定的空间溢出效应,也在一定程度抑制了全要素生产率增长。结论 考虑要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率影响的空间分析,更能客观反映当前不断深化的农业农村改革发展所引发的地区差距,应充分重视要素市场扭曲对农业全要素生产率的空间溢出效应,通过要素市场化改革,持续加大涉农政策调整,不断加大对农业农村生产经营的金融资源投入,逐步实现农业全要素生产率的全面提升。     

Is there a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth in South America?

This article estimates agricultural productivity growth in 10 South American countries in 1969–2009 with the objective of investigating if the slowdown being measured in other countries is present in the region. Results show that productivity growth accounts for half of the three‐fold increase in agricultural output during this period and that performance is sensitive to R&D investments in the sector. The slowdown found for the 1990s to 2000s in the U.S. and some European economies does not seem to be present yet in South America. The region's total factor productivity (TFP) growth rate increased steadily from 1.07% during the 1970s to 2.29% during the 2000s. Given lags in adoption and the adaptive nature of innovations in these economies, we have yet to see the potential effects in South American agriculture of decreases in R&D in advanced economies.     

甘肃省农业环境效率及碳排放约束下农业全要素生产率测算研究

[目的]考虑碳排放约束,分析甘肃省农业全要素生产率整体特征和区域特征,以期为提升甘肃省农业可持续发展能力提供参考。[方法]文章基于2005—2016年甘肃省14市州面板数据,以农业碳排放作为非期望产出指标,运用非径向、非角度的SBM模型和Malmquist—Luenberger生产率指数法,对甘肃省农业环境效率和碳排放约束下农业全要素生产率指数进行测算。[结果](1) 2005—2016年甘肃省农业环境效率值总体呈现下降—上升—趋于平缓的变化趋势,且均小于1;(2)碳排放约束下甘肃省农业全要素生产率总体呈现波动增长的趋势,年均值为1.010,年均增长率为1%,且主要来源于技术进步;(3)甘肃省农业全要素生产率增长存在显著区域差异,其中中部地区增长最快,陇东南地区次之,河西地区增长最慢。[结论]忽视碳排放将不利于农业可持续发展,建议各区域依据自身资源禀赋,采取差异化的发展思路,提高农业技术成果转化率是提升甘肃省农业全要素生产率的关键。     

India's post‐green‐revolution agricultural performance: what is driving growth?

Following a period of poor performance in the 1990s, India's agricultural growth rate has reaccelerated in the 2000s. Some believe the reacceleration has been a product of intensified investment, which in turn has spurred yield growth. Others suggest it is because India's newly wealthy citizens have demanded greater product diversification. To examine these hypotheses, we use growth accounting techniques in conjunction with more complete agricultural production data than in past studies to construct state, regional, and national output, input, and total factor productivity quantity indexes, which can be decomposed into their underlying sources. Sectoral performance evaluation suggests that, since 1980, output growth has diffused away from the northern “grain belt” and toward high‐value agriculture in traditionally less‐productive regions. Productivity growth, rather than resource use, has accounted for these geographical and intensity shifts. The growth burst has not, as the literature has primarily argued, been uniquely explainable by yield growth or product diversification but by a variety of factors, including area expansion. For example, the contributions of irrigation technologies permitting double‐cropping have until now been largely ignored.     

中国农业效率测度及其影响因素分析——基于区域差异的视角

首先运用SEDEA模型和中国省际面板数据,计算2010—2014年中国七大区域31个省(自治区、直辖市)的农业效率,然后使用Tobit模型分析影响农业效率的因素。研究结果表明:2010—2014年间中国不同区域的农业效率在时间序列上表现得较为平稳,在横截面上表现出较大的差异;在总体上,效率由高到低的区域为东北、华东、西南、中南、华南、华北、西北;在影响因素中,经济条件、产业结构和教育水平都对区域农业效率呈现正面影响,面源污染对农业效率呈现负面影响。因此,为提升区域的农业效率,政府不仅需要增强区域经济实力,提高农村居民人均收入,而且要大力发展职业教育,增强农民的就业能力,还要重视面源污染对农业效率的负面影响,促进农业安全、高效、绿色发展。     

Geography of plant breeding systems,agroclimatic similarity,and agricultural productivity: evidence from Nigeria

Agroclimatic conditions and agricultural research and development (R&D) including plant breeding activities by the public sector are some of the most significant exogenous factors in the agricultural sector. However, the effects of the interactions between these two sets of factors on agricultural productivity have not been studied widely in developing countries, despite potentially important implications on their plant breeding strategies. Using three‐wave panel data of agricultural households in Nigeria and spatial data on various agroclimatic parameters, we show that agricultural productivity and technical efficiency at the agricultural household level is significantly positively affected by the similarity of agroclimatic conditions between locations where agricultural households are located, and locations where major plant breeding institutes are located. These results hold after controlling for various socioeconomic characteristics of these households, including their physical distances to the breeding institutes. Findings are robust across parametric and nonparametric specifications such as Data Envelopment Method, and after addressing potential endogeneity of agroclimatic similarity and agricultural inputs variables in the production function. Productivity effects due to the locations of plant breeding institutes and resulting agroclimatic similarity can be potentially sizable given Nigeria's past productivity growth speed.     

Addressing climate change cause and effect on land cover and land use in South Asia

This paper evaluates the role of trade liberalization and agricultural intensification in mitigating climate change cause and effects on land use and emissions using a computable general equilibrium model. Our results indicate that cropland expansion triggered by climate-induced crop productivity changes results in deforestation and increases emissions in South Asia and globally. Global full trade liberalization on all goods is the optimum policy for South Asia despite significant global deforestation, but for the world, unilateral partial trade liberalization on all goods is a more appropriate policy while ensuring a considerable emissions reduction for South Asia. These results indicate that mitigation responses to climate change are location specific and no one trade policy is suitable at the regional and global levels. Lastly, agricultural intensification by improving productivity growth is the best strategy in land-based emissions mitigation, thereby avoiding the transformation of forest and pasture lands for agricultural cultivation both at regional and global levels.     

Productivity in Indonesian agriculture: Impacts of domestic and international research

Total factor productivity growth contributed 38% of Indonesia's agricultural output growth from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s. This study uses time series data analysed with an error correction mechanism to examine the contribution that Indonesian publicly funded agricultural research made to this outcome, allowing for other possible determinants of productivity growth, including international agricultural research, extension, government price policy and weather. The results imply a 27% real annual rate of return from a marginal increase in Indonesian agricultural research expenditure. Indonesia's public agricultural research explains virtually all of its agricultural total factor productivity growth between 1975 and 2006.     

PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH AND THE UK FOOD SYSTEM 1954-84

This paper uses input-output data bases to derive estimates of industry productivity growth rates in the UK for three discrete sub-periods. The results are then used to derive estimates of the within-industry productivity growth contributions to the changing efficiency over time of the economic system in meeting consumers' food requirements. The resultant estimates indicate the value of extending studies of agricultural productivity growth to encompass efficiency gains in industries that are upstream and downstream of the agricultural industry.     

农业产业集聚对农业绿色全要素生产率的影响——基于空间溢出效应视角

目的 农业产业集聚是农业绿色发展的重要影响因素之一,剖析农业产业集聚对农业绿色全要素生产率的影响,有助于实现农业绿色化和现代化发展。方法 文章基于1998—2018年中国省域农业发展数据,引入空间因素,通过构建空间杜宾模型分析农业产业集聚对农业绿色全要素生产率的影响及其空间溢出效应。结果 （1）在样本考察期内,中国农业产业集聚与农业绿色全要素生产率均存在明显的空间相关性;（2）农业产业集聚对农业绿色全要素生产率具有显著的负向影响,且该影响具有明显的空间溢出效应,在一定程度上制约了周边区域农业绿色全要素生产率的提升;（3）财政支农、工业化和自然灾害对农业绿色全要素生产率具有显著的负向影响,城市化、对外开放对农业绿色全要素生产率具有显著的正向影响。结论 应把握省域农业空间关联规律,推进区域农业绿色、协调发展,优化资源配置,科学布局农业产业,并从财政支持、城镇化、工业化、自然灾害和农业开放水平等方面推进农业绿色全要素生产率的提升。     

US TENDANCES DE LA PRODUCTIVITE TOTALE DANS L'AGRICULTURE: CANADA, ONTARIO, QUEBEC, 1926–64

This paper measures and analyses the changes in total productivity of Canadian, Ontario and Quebec agriculture for the period 1926 to 1964. The rate of growth in productivity from 1945 to 1964 has been about the same for Canadian and Ontario agriculture while that of Quebec has been higher than either by one per cent a year. Total productivity gains correspond to decreases in the average costs of production at the farm level. Quebec's farmers have therefore improved their relative position as competitors. These productivity gains have important and far reaching implications not only for fanners and the agricultural industry but also for the provinces and the entire Canadian economy.     

Trade policy, biotechnology and grain self-sufficiency in China

Over the past 20 years the growth of China's agricultural economy has been extraordinary. However, it seems unlikely that China will maintain self‐sufficiency in grains by 2005 without substantial intervention. We develop a CGE model to assess the options available to Chinese policy makers. We compare the welfare effects of import tariffs and domestic support, and explore the potential of biotechnology as a means to achieve self‐sufficiency through improvements in agricultural productivity. Our results indicate that the price interventions that would be required to maintain China's desired self‐sufficiency ratios are considerable, and are unlikely to be compatible with WTO accession. The productivity improvements required are also significant, and likely beyond the current potential of biotechnology.     

Challenges of trade and agricultural development for East/Central Europe and states of the former USSR

The agricultural transition in Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR reflects a fundamental change in development strategy, and will have a profound impact on agricultural trade. The greatest impact will be indirect, through agriculture's contribution to general economic reform and acceleration of regional and global growth. The direct impact on trade in food and fiber will in aggregate consist of a fall in net imports. Most of the decline in net imports will derive from reduction in demand and improved utilization. Potential for productivity increase is substantial, but not all of the increased productivity will be reflected in the traditional supply response of increased production. Instead marginal resources will shift out of farming, and producers will restructure and adopt new technologies in pursuit of lower costs. Shifts in the commodity composition of trade will occur, and the changes in grain and livestock markets will be greatest. If the reform is successful, the former Soviet Union could become a modest net grain exporter instead of a large importer. Wheat would be the leading export grain, and levels of wheat exports and corn imports could become quite sensitive to relative prices on world markets.     

Asian Agricultural Productivity and Convergence

This paper measures agricultural total factor productivity (TFP), for eighteen Asian countries, from 1965 to 1996. TFP is measured by calculating the Malmquist index with respect to the sequential frontier, which is appropriate when the cross section is relatively small. The results show that half the countries have experienced negative productivity growth, due to losses in technical efficiency combined with stagnation in technological progress. Both cross‐section and time series tests show that there is no evidence of convergence in agricultural productivity for these countries. The less productive countries are falling further behind, rather than catching up. Finally, comparisons with Africa show that although Asia has had faster TFP growth than Africa, three of the five African regions (East, Central and Southern) have grown faster than any of the Asian regions.     

Dynamic general equilibrium analysis of improved weed management in Australia's winter cropping systems*

A recent analysis indicated that the direct financial cost of weeds to Australia's winter grain sector was approximately $A1.2bn in 1998–1999. Costs of this magnitude represent a large recurring productivity loss in an agricultural sector that is sufficient to impact significantly on regional economies. Using a multi‐regional dynamic computable general equilibrium model, we simulate the general equilibrium effects of a hypothetical successful campaign to reduce the economic costs of weeds. We assume that an additional $50m of R&D spread over five years is targeted at reducing the additional costs and reduced yields arising from weeds in various broadacre crops. Following this R&D effort, one‐tenth of the losses arising from weeds is temporarily eliminated, with a diminishing benefit in succeeding years. At the national level, there is a welfare increase of $700m in discounted net present value terms. The regions with relatively high concentrations of winter crops experience small temporary macroeconomic gains.     

基于超效率DEA模型的中国农业科技资源配置效率动态演化研究

[目的]通过测算中国农业科技资源配置效率,分析存在的差异性,为配置效率的提升寻求有效措施。[方法]运用超效率DEA,对2001~2014年间中国31个区域的面板数据进行农业科技资源配置效率的全面评估,从中探究区域农业科技资源配置效率的变动趋势和时空特征,构建Malmquist指数以从技术进步水平和技术效率水平考察影响区域农业科技资源配置效率变动的因素。[结果]中国各地区整体的配置效率呈现上升趋势,超效率平均值从2001年的0.520上升到2014年的0.764;农业全要素生产率平均增长1.3%,其中综合技术效率指数年均增长4.2%、技术进步变化指数年均下降2.8%;从影响农业科技资源配置效率的技术进步和技术效率来看,技术效率已成为主要因素。从细分的6个区域来看,华东地区全要素生产率平均值最高,西北地区最低。从具体省份情况来看,有17个省(市、区)的全要素生产率指数大于1,其中天津、上海、广东、海南全要素生产率增长较快,年均增长率达到10%以上。[结论]提高中国农业科技资源配置效率,可采取优化农业科技资源配置结构,各地根据农业科技资源实际扬长避短、合作共赢,实施农业科技"走出去"战略等措施。     

Determinants of Grain Production and Technical Efficiency in China

A stochastic frontier production function is used to investigate the prospect to bring China's grain production and productivity to higher levels using a panel data set on 30 provinces from 1987–92. Given an irreversible trend of declining agricultural land, the only feasible way to raise total grain output is to increase land productivity if China does not want to rely on large-scale imports to feed her huge and still growing population. Considerable regional differences in grain yields suggest that there is still a vast potential for raising grain output. The short term solution is to use more land-augmenting inputs such as fertilisers and irrigation in the medium and low yield regions. However, the law of diminishing returns is in operation as more physical inputs are applied to shrinking land. Growth in grain output in the long term must rely on improvements in technical efficiency.