Paths and Limits of Agricultural Growth

Paths and Limits

of Agricultural Growth

How a decreasing share of the active population can

provide food for an increasing number of people on

a limited land and without adverse impacts

on environmental ressources ?

Michel Benoit-Cattin, CIRAD

UMR MOISA, Montpellier,

F- 34 398 France

michel.benoit-cattin@cirad.fr

Bruno Dorin, CIRAD

UMR CIRED, Montpellier,

F- 34 398 France

bruno.dorin@cirad.fr

www

.cir

ad.fr

Copyright Cirad - 2008

Maquette et mise en page : C. Rollin

0 5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 25 000 30 000 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Cultivated ar ea ( ha) per agr icultural wor ker

V eget al f ood pr odu c tion ( k cal / da y ) per hec tar e 12 500 5 0 00 0 kcal / worker 25 00 0 100 000 kcal / wo rker 400 000 kcal / worker 2 00 0 00 kca l / worker 6 250 LAM OECD M ENA SS A A SIA FSU Wor ld

Regional Agricultural Productivity Paths (1961-2003)

0 5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 25 000 30 000 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 kca l / d a y

Highest land productivity in Asia

(Kcal * Day-1_{* Ha}-1₎

A per worker land availability boom in OECD

(Ha * Worker-1₎ 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 hec tar es ( m ill ion) 0 200 400 600 800 1 000 1 200 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Mc api ta

1.5 billion hectares of cultivated area

(crops + plantations)

Tractors / 100 Workers Tractors / 100 Ha

72.0 4.1 0.1 0.1 7.5 0.77 0.4 0.9 4.0 1.1 3.8 2.0 0 5 10 15 20 25 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 hec tar es OCDE SSA FSU A sia LA M M ENA / worker Motorization (year 2000) 1.3 billion of agricultural workers

(active agricultural population)

The contrast between OECD and non-OECD countries is very impressive as far as the per-worker productivity is concerned. This "North/South agricultural divide" is due to huge differences in motorization (and related uses of fossil ressources for ploughing, seeding, applying fertilizers and pesticides, irrigating, harvesting, drying...), as our proxy "number of tractors" (per hectare or per agricultural worker) suggests it.

The XIIth EAAE Congress - August 26-29, 2008 - Ghent, Belgium

Centre

de coopération

internationale

en recherche

agronomique

pour le

développement

Data

and methodology

Faostat1 country-level statistical series (FAO 2006) on land-uses, populations and agricultural productions were bulk-downloaded, merged and har-monized on more than 40 years (1961 to 2003). The output database kept 156 geographical entities represen-ting 99% of the 2000 world population and 99% of the world land area without Antarctica and Western Sahara. An aggregated vegetal food production (AP) has been estima-ted as follow: APr =

Σ

i (Pir * Ci), where r is a region, i a

non-processed product of the 80 lines of vegetal food pro-ducts (cereals, oilseeds, pulses, fruit, vegetables, etc.)

listed in the statistical series "Commodity Balances", P the volume of production in tonnes of product

line i, and C its food calorie content per tonne according to the FAO (FAO 2003) or to

our own inferences.

References

FAO, 2003. Food Balance Sheets. A handbook, FAO, Rome, http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/X9892E/X9892E00.HTM FAO, 2006. Faostat, Web portal and database as on 30/06/2006, http://faostat.fao.org/site/395/default.aspx MEA, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, World Resources Institute, Whashington D.C., 155 p. and http://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.774.aspx.pdf

From hundreds thousands FAO's data, we provide a new synthetic view of the past 40-years agricultural productivity paths for 6 macro-regions and for the world. Each of these specific paths, results from limi-tations in land availability (X axis) and ability to increase land yields (Y axis).

Global trends

Between 1961 and 2003, the world population has been multiplied by 2 and the urban one by 3,

whereas active people involved in agriculture has increased by only 60%.

Consequently, the number of persons nourished by an agricultural worker has increased from 3.6 to 4.7 on average (+31%).

This was made possible thanks to an increase of production per worker (+53%) as well as per cultivated hectare (+123%),

while the cultivated area per worker has fallen from 1.45 ha to around 1 ha.

The MEA regions

(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment)

Regional agricultural productivities

OECD: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development LAM: Latin America

SSA: Sub-Saharan Africa MENA: Middle East & North Africa FSU: Former Soviet Union ASIA: Asia

Is there a sustainable

agricultural productivity path?

Despite a fantastic OECD's growth in terms of labour productivity due to motorization and quite easy rural-urban migrations, the

world average agricultural productivity path remains rather close to the ASIA one based, above all, on a yield boost. This land

pro-ductivity is high in ASIA as well as in OECD, but in both cases, seems now to level off for various possible reasons (low market

or political incentives, increasing prices of fossil energies and of other agricultural inputs, water stress, soil or biodiversity

erosion…).

Future important yield growth may take place in FSU where both land and labour productivities seem still rather easy to improve.

In LAM where the productivities are already significantly high, the extension of the cultivated area may be the first challenge and

problem, while in SSA, it is the peaceful land access along with mechanisation and sustainable yields improvement. Whatever

happens, future employment and livelihood of present agricultural families remains a global key question, and one may wonder

if the high OECD motorization of agriculture is a possible and desirable path to follow elsewhere in the world.

The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Regions

Labour productivity = Land productivity x Land availability

Kcal/Worker = Kcal/Ha x Ha/Worker