IN 1950, the world’s farmers fed around 2,5 billion people, which was the global population at the time. Today, that number has increased to a total of around eight billion people.
Between 1950 and 2020, the world’s total output of crops, livestock and aquaculture commodities, grew from US$1,1 trillion, to a staggering US$4,3 trillion.
This major transition to high agricultural output has been primarily driven by innovations in the agricultural sector.
Smarter farming techniques, more efficient machines, and improved plant and animal genetics, have been among the central drivers of this remarkable growth.
The use of better harvesters, the introduction and deployment of drones, application of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and new business models, cannot be overemphasised.
The increase in the world’s food production from the 1990s to date, has been largely attributed to as much as a 6,9 fold increase in the application of nitrogen fertiliser and a 3,5 fold increase in phosphorus fertiliser application.
In just those three decades (1990s- 2025), there has been a generous 100% increase in the world’s food output.
It is noteworthy to emphasise that this productivity growth has been so successful that it has occurred, while the total number of people employed in the world's agriculture have been declining steadily, since the early 2000s.
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From a peak of 1,1 billion workers, around 2005, the world’s agricultural sector now employs only about 900 million people, and is forecast to continue in steady decline, in the foreseeable future.
Particularly, between the 1960s and 1980s, global agricultural growth was largely the result of using more inputs — that is, land, labour, capital and other materials.
However, from the 1980s, given inputs have been transformed in a more productive and efficient manner, driving growth of output.
That means, from the 1980s to date, the world has been getting more food, not necessarily because more land has been deployed to agriculture but because land, labour and capital are being used in a more productive and efficient manner.
As agricultural output increased nearly four-fold, against a global population increase of only 2,6 times, between 1960 and 2020, there was a 53% increase in the world’s agricultural output per capita (per person). Key benefits from global agriculture’s productivity growth, include the fact that food-price-inflation declined, allowing for global diets to be more affordable and diverse.
How does Africa stake?
Africa however, has a lot of work to do, since its productivity in agriculture still falls far behind other continents. The continent harvests just below two tonnes of cereals per hectare, while North America, South America, Europe and Asia, harvest around 6,5 tonnes, 4,8 tonnes, 4,5 tonnes and 4,4 tonnes, respectively.
In Zimbabwe’s case, the situation is even worse. The country harvests as little as one tonne per hectare of land tilled for maize. This is against world averages of 5,75 tonnes per hectare.
Thus far, Africa has relied heavily on expanding land under cultivation, for its growth in output, since the past few decades.
However, this route to growth has several drawbacks.
Firstly, the amount of land available for further expansion is limited, since arable land is a finite resource.
Secondly, any further expansion of land under cultivation can have damaging effects on the environment.
For example, deforestation due to land expansion causes the release of harmful gasses into the atmosphere, as trees and vegetation release carbon dioxide and other gasses that they had stored within them, when they are cut down.
Deforestation also reduces biodiversity since the clearing of forests limits wildlife habitat and other ecological systems. As it stands, nearly all wildlife habitat loss in the world, today, is driven by the expansion of land under agricultural activities.
In South Asia, for example, growth in cereal output has been significantly driven by an increase in yields per hectare, whilst the land under cultivation has actually remained the same.
For instance, between 1980 and 2018, the land under the cultivation of cereal crops has remained at 1,32 million hectares in the 40 year period (1980-2018).
However, Asia’s average tonnes of harvest per hectare have increased from 1,4 tonnes to 3,4 tonnes per hectare. Total yields of cereals have therefore surged from 189 million tonnes to 440 million tonnes, between 1980 and 2018.
On the other hand, in Africa, from 1980-2018, land under the cultivation of cereal crops has grown from 48 million hectares to 112 million hectares. That means the land use for the cultivation of cereals has more than doubled.
The total harvest of cereals in Africa has increased notably, as they have tripled from only 53 million tonnes in 1989, to 161 million tonnes in 2018.
Nevertheless, factoring in the expansion of land under cultivation, the average yield per hectare for cereals, has only increased from 1,1 tonnes per hectare to just 1,5 tonnes per hectare.
This shows that productivity growth has remained limited in Africa unlike in other continents of the world.
Farming, developing economies
A more efficient and productive agricultural sector is of chief importance for developing economies, such as those in Africa.
That is because even small improvements in productivity have an outsized impact on poverty, in those countries.
Impeccable studies have shown that, for low income countries, a 1% increase in agricultural total factor productivity results in a 1% decline of the share of the country’s population living in extreme poverty.
This is approximately double the impact of the influence of the services sector and manufacturing on developing economies.
Data from Bangladesh shows the poverty reducing power of efficient farming methods. The south Asian nation was among the poorest in the world in 1971, when it gained independence from Pakistan. It was highly food-insecure and required food aid.
However, from the mid-1990s, a combination of factors, including macro-economic reforms and the adoption of new agricultural technologies, resulted in an increase in the country’s agricultural growth rate, which more than doubled after 1996.
Important innovations that were embraced included improved crop varieties, better techniques for aquaculture production and marketing, the availability of low-cost equipment for groundwater irrigation, and an emphasis on inclusive adult education and training.
Between 1991 and 2016, the share of the population living on less than US$3,20 per day (per capita) in Bangladesh, fell from 84% to 53%. Whereas, between 1991 and 2018, the share of children under five years old suffering from stunting declined from 74% to 31%.
That reflected the better standards of living and improved child nutrition. Productivity-led growth in agriculture raised farm household incomes, reduced the cost of food, and stimulated the demand for non-farm goods and services.
Ultimately, non-farm employment grew more rapidly than farm employment, nationally, including in rural areas. As a result, farm families began to devote more of their labour to non-farm activities and diversify their sources of income. This gave more impetus to the performance of Bangladesh’s economy.
Ethiopia is highly dependent on agriculture. It has suffered drought and famine, multiple times since 1950. An estimated 400 000 lives were lost to starvation in 1984 and 1985.
However, it has fertile soil, adequate climate and a large labour force. The country only began to harness its agricultural potential in the mid-1990s.
Under its policy termed “Agricultural Development-Led Industrialisation” (ADLI), it focused on three main strategies:
l The expansion of agricultural technologies;
l Investment in agricultural infrastructure, including inputs; and
l Boosting rural non-agricultural sectors of the economy.
In ADLI’s first decade the provision of, off-the-shelf fertiliser packages, improvement of access to inputs and credit (loans), and widening the access of extension services for farmers, were prevalent.
With time, ADLI evolved to include agricultural research, the design and operationalisation of economic growth corridors, a productive safety net programme (social grants) and a voluntary land resettlement programme.
Ethiopia’s government then went on to liberalise agricultural markets and built rural transport infrastructure. All this came at a cost. That is because between 2001 and 2017, spending on agriculture was 9,4% of the Ethiopian government’s total budget.
It, however, paid off. Over the three decades from 1990 to 2020, Ethiopia’s agriculture became more productive, whilst poverty was slashed, nationally.
In the 15 years to 2019, the economy grew by 7% annually, on a GDP per capita basis, according to World Bank data. This rate of growth, in that time period, was only next to China, globally.
Overall, Ethiopia remains relatively poor on a per capita basis, with a GDP per capita of only US$950.
However, it has grown rapidly from a very low base (extreme poverty) and is now on the cusp of being a middle income economy.
In all this, the success of ADLI cannot be ignored since agriculture accounts for as much as 40% of Ethiopia’s GDP, 90% of its export earnings and 96% of rural employment.
Tutani is a political economy analyst- [email protected]
