Integrated approaches for agricultural sustainability and productivity assessments

Increasing agricultural productivity growth sustainably can help to address the triple challenge of providing sufficient affordable and nutritious food for a growing global population, while supporting sector livelihoods and improving environmental outcomes. However, challenges remain in measuring environmentally sustainable productivity growth. This study uses alternative approaches to address these challenges and provides answers to the following questions: i) has Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth coincided with improved environmental outcomes?; and ii) has the agricultural productivity and environmental performance of countries improved over time? While there is compelling evidence that TFP growth has helped countries to expand agricultural output and reduce greenhouse gas emissions per unit of output, these emissions increased in absolute terms for about half of the OECD countries assessed and nitrogen surpluses increased for about one-third. While these environmental impacts would have been larger if output had expanded in the absence of productivity growth, there is room to steer innovation in the sector in a more environmentally sustainable direction.