Where does all this food come from?
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| The abundance of safe, nutritious food in the U.S. is efficiently produced. |
We understand that every American farmer feeds roughly 155 people. Since
these people do not have to farm to feed themselves they are free to pursue
other careers. This phenomenon is often referred to as the “industrialization
of agriculture.” By increasing the
productive capacity of our farmers we were able to devote massive amounts of creativity
and innovation to manufacturing, technology, communications and trade. What is
this thing we call “productivity?”
Productivity is the
ratio of output to inputs in production; it is a measure of the efficiency of production.
Productivity
has many benefits. At the national level, productivity growth raises living
standards as more real income improves people's ability to purchase goods and services,
enjoy leisure, upgrade their housing and education, and contribute to social
and environmental programs. Productivity growth is important to a business because
more real income means the business can meet its commitments to customers,
suppliers, workers, shareholders, and governments (taxes and regulation), and
still remain competitive or even improve its competitiveness in the market
place
It is widely agreed that increased productivity is the
main contributor to economic growth in U.S. agriculture. The level of U.S. farm output in 2011 was 170%
above its level in 1952, growing at an average annual rate of 1.63%. This
occurred as total input use increased a mere 0.11% annually, so the positive
growth in farm sector output was very substantially due to productivity growth.
But
what exactly is farm productivity?
Single-factor measures of productivity, such as corn
production per acre or per hour of labor, have been used for many years because
the underlying data are often easily available. While useful, such simple measures
can also mislead. For example, yields could increase simply because farmers are
adding more of other inputs, such as chemicals, labor, or machinery, to their
land base. To account for a wider range of inputs our USDA produces measures of
total factor productivity, taking account of the use of all inputs to the
production process.
Specifically, annual productivity growth is the
difference between growth of agricultural output and the growth of all inputs
taken together. Productivity therefore measures changes in the efficiency with
which inputs are transformed into outputs. Input measures are adjusted for
changes in their quality, such as improvements in the efficacy of chemicals and
seeds, changes in the demographics of the farm workforce, or innovations in
machinery design. As a result, agricultural productivity is driven by
innovations in on-farm tasks, changes in the organization and structure of the
farm sector, research aimed at improvements in farm production, and/or random
events like weather. There are many facts and
figures on U.S. farm productivity to
support this conclusion.
As we have benefited as a society from the creativity and
innovation of all those people freed from the tasks of food production, we have
also benefited greatly from the creativity and innovation of those few people
that did chose to pursue farming as a career. In other words, farmers were
getting better and better at their jobs, using more and better technology, and
progressing at a faster pace than urban workers. Many see this as a huge
advantage for both farmers and consumers. Productivity growth provides the
potential for higher farm incomes and lower consumer food costs (Bill
Ganzel. ) The U.S. leads the world in food production efficiency. We get
the most food from resources consumed which allows us to put additional
resources towards other uses.
SOURCE: USDA, ERS research report: Agricultural Productivity in the U.S.
