Agricultural productivity
[4] Increasing agricultural productivity through sustainable practices can be an important way to decrease the amount of land needed for farming and slow environmental degradation and climate change through processes like deforestation.
Aside from providing more food, increasing the productivity of farms affects the region's prospects for growth and competitiveness on the agricultural market, income distribution and savings, and labour migration.
[11] Therefore, the region becomes more competitive on the world market, which means that it can attract more consumers since they are able to buy more of the products offered for the same amount of money.
[15] India, one of the world's most populous countries, has taken steps in the past decades to increase its land productivity.
[14] Higher global food prices between 2006 and 2008, primarily caused by an increasing amount arable land used for growing biofuels and the growing economies in China and elsewhere causing an increase in demand for meat products (which are less efficient than plants in terms of land use), caused the percentage of incomes used for food to increase throughout the world, forcing families to cut back on various other expenditures such as schooling for girls.
In areas of sub-Saharan Africa, a decreased agricultural productivity due to crop failures has caused starvation.
[15] On the other hand, higher global prices actually mean farmers with successful yields earn more, and this thus increases their productivity.
Women in some areas of the world, for example in Africa, traditionally have less agency than men, but are often also more invested in farming in terms of time spent.
Marxist agrarian land reform in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam combined small farms into larger units, this usually failed to increase productivity.
[22] Nonetheless, increasing agricultural productivity amongst smallholder farms is an important way to improve farmer livelihoods in the developing world.
International policy, embodied in Sustainable Development Goal 2, focuses on improving these practices at a global level.
The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land and the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C both project mixed changes in the yields of crops as global warming happens with some breadbasket regions becoming less productive, while other crops increase ranges and productivity.
