Whether you’re running a small family farm or a large agriculture operation, there’s probably one thing you think about during each workday and its agricultural productivity. After all, maintaining good productivity is the key to keeping your farm profitable. In this article, we will talk about the measures and drivers of agricultural productivity.

The most common way to measure agricultural productivity is to use the total factor productivity (TFP), which is also sometimes called multifactor productivity (MFP). Unlike some productivity measures that compare individual productivity factors such as crop yields and man-hours, TFP compares all outputs to all inputs. This allows farmers, government bodies, and others to gain a more comprehensive understanding of productivity changes over time. Plus, this measure of agricultural productivity can be used to compare farms of different types and sizes. Long-term changes in TFP usually reflect general increases or decreases in efficiency due to the implementation of new technology and other factors. At the same time, short-term changes can be caused by a variety of other factors such as unusual weather conditions, etc.

Since different agricultural outputs and inputs are measured in different units, it’s impossible to calculate TFP outright. This is why many farmers use the Fisher index method, which converts each output and input to a ratio of quantity to price.

Advances in technology have been some of the key drivers of agricultural productivity over the years. For instance, this includes the development of high-yield crops, seeds resistant to diseases and pests, remote sensors, automatic irrigation systems, tractor navigation and autosteer devices, farm drones, etc.

Competition with other farm owners pushes farmers to adopt new technologies and optimize their operations in an attempt to minimize costs and make their prices more competitive.

Over the past few decades, the average size of farms in many countries has increased. This leads to a boost in productivity, as larger farms are generally more effective and profitable than smaller operations.

The level of education of farm management and the level of skill of farm workers plays an important role in agricultural productivity. Farms with highly educated managers and skilled workers tend to perform much better than average.

One of the best ways to measure farm productivity is to use the total factor productivity index. This measure allows farmers who run different types of operations to assess their productivity and evaluate the effect of different productivity drivers.