Relative agricultural productivity and tropical deforestation

Steven K. Rose, Alla Golub, Thomas Hertel and Brent Sohngen

No 332227, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: Agriculture production is the primary driver of global deforestation, and technological change in agriculture has implications for agricultural land extensification decisions. Some have even suggested that agricultural productivity improvements could help address deforestation. Recent studies have pointed out the importance of considering total factor productivity (TFP) improvements. TFP has two components—technological convergence (or catching-up), as well as frontier shifts. Historically, each has exhibited significant variation across agricultural sectors and across global regions, with many regions experiencing net positive productivity growth due to improvements in the technology despite falling further from the frontier. This paper analyzes the potential implications of TFP growth, relative agricultural productivity growth, and convergence on deforestation, as well as overall land use and agricultural production. We find that total factor productivity increases, and technological convergence, can increase deforestation. In particular, deforestation and land-use are strongly influenced by relative agricultural productivity growth across regions and sectors. Overall, we find that agricultural productivity growth is more nuanced than generally discussed and TFP growth and convergence patterns are potentially very important to global agriculture and deforestation.

Keywords: Productivity Analysis; Environmental Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332227

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