IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2405.08159.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Large increases in public R&D investment are needed to avoid declines of US agricultural productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Ariel Ortiz-Bobea
  • Robert G. Chambers
  • Yurou He
  • David B. Lobell

Abstract

Increasing agricultural productivity is a gradual process with significant time lags between research and development (R&D) investment and the resulting gains. We estimate the response of US agricultural Total Factor Productivity (TFP) to both R&D investment and weather, and quantify the public R&D spending required to offset the emerging impacts of climate change. We find that offsetting the climate-induced productivity slowdown by 2050 alone requires a sustained public R&D spending growth of 5.2-7.8% per year over 2021-2050. This amounts to an additional $208-$434B investment over this period. These are substantial requirements comparable to the public R&D spending growth that followed the two World Wars.

Suggested Citation

  • Ariel Ortiz-Bobea & Robert G. Chambers & Yurou He & David B. Lobell, 2024. "Large increases in public R&D investment are needed to avoid declines of US agricultural productivity," Papers 2405.08159, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2405.08159
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.08159
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oliver T. Coomes & Bradford L. Barham & Graham K. MacDonald & Navin Ramankutty & Jean-Paul Chavas, 2019. "Leveraging total factor productivity growth for sustainable and resilient farming," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 22-28, January.
    2. Ariel Ortiz-Bobea & Toby R. Ault & Carlos M. Carrillo & Robert G. Chambers & David B. Lobell, 2021. "Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural productivity growth," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(4), pages 306-312, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fuglie, Keith O. & Morgan, Stephen & Jelliffe, Jeremy, 2024. "World Agricultural Production, Resource Use, and Productivity, 1961–2020," Economic Information Bulletin 341638, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Zhang, Yang & Zhang, Yan & Gao, Yan & McLaughlin, Neil B. & Huang, Dandan & Wang, Yang & Chen, Xuewen & Zhang, Shixiu & Liang, Aizhen, 2024. "Effects of tillage practices on environment, energy, and economy of maize production in Northeast China," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    3. Liu, Yong & Ruiz-Menjivar, Jorge & Zhang, Junbiao, 2022. "Climate adaptation and technical efficiency of rice production in Central China," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322521, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Stefano Pinardi & Matteo Salis & Gabriele Sartor & Rosa Meo, 2023. "EU−Africa: Digital and Social Questions in a Multicultural Agroecological Transition for the Cocoa Production in Africa," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-29, July.
    5. Yoshiyuki Kurachi & Hajime Morishima & Hiroshi Kawata & Ryo Shibata & Kazuma Bunya & Jin Moteki, 2022. "Challenges for Japan's Economy in the Decarbonization Process," Bank of Japan Research Papers 22-06-09, Bank of Japan.
    6. Koiry, Subrata & Huang, Wei, 2023. "Do ecological protection approaches affect total factor productivity change of cropland production in Sweden?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    7. Coronese, Matteo & Occelli, Martina & Lamperti, Francesco & Roventini, Andrea, 2023. "AgriLOVE: Agriculture, land-use and technical change in an evolutionary, agent-based model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    8. Jianxu Liu & Mengjiao Wang & Li Yang & Sanzidur Rahman & Songsak Sriboonchitta, 2020. "Agricultural Productivity Growth and Its Determinants in South and Southeast Asian Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-21, June.
    9. Khed, Vijayalaxmi D. & Jat, M. L. & Krishna, Vijesh V., 2022. "Incentives for Experimenting with Sustainable Intensification: Can Direct Payments to Farmers Help Diversify the Cropping Systems in South India?," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), September.
    10. Wang, Yuhan & Lewis, David J., 2024. "Wildfires and climate change have lowered the economic value of western U.S. forests by altering risk expectations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    11. Luis Guillermo Becerra-Valbuena, 2021. "Droughts and Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change," Working Papers halshs-03420657, HAL.
    12. Khodran Alzahrani & Mubashar Ali & Muhammad Imran Azeem & Bader Alhafi Alotaibi, 2023. "Efficacy of Public Extension and Advisory Services for Sustainable Rice Production," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-17, May.
    13. Wencun Zhou & Zhengjia Liu & Sisi Wang, 2023. "Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the Cropland Area and Its Response to Increasing Regional Extreme Weather Events in the Farming-Pastoral Ecotone of Northern China during 1992–2020," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-28, September.
    14. Weilun Huang & Xucheng Wang, 2024. "The Impact of Technological Innovations on Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Sustainability in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-37, September.
    15. Shah, Wasi Ul Hassan & Hao, Gang & Yasmeen, Rizwana & Yan, Hong & Shen, Jintao & Lu, Yuting, 2023. "Role of China's agricultural water policy reforms and production technology heterogeneity on agriculture water usage efficiency and total factor productivity change," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    16. Thomas Slijper & Yann de Mey & P Marijn Poortvliet & Miranda P M Meuwissen, 2022. "Quantifying the resilience of European farms using FADN," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 49(1), pages 121-150.
    17. Birthal, Pratap S. & Hazrana, Jaweriah & Roy, Devesh & Satyasai, K. J. S, 2024. "Can Finance Mitigate Climate Risks in Agriculture? Farm-level Evidence from India," Policy Papers 344992, ICAR National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NIAP).
    18. Bucheli, Janic & Visse, Margot & Herrera, Juan & Häner, Lilia Levy & Tack, Jesse & Finger, Robert, 2022. "Precipitation causes quality losses of economic relevance in wheat production," 96th Annual Conference, April 4-6, 2022, K U Leuven, Belgium 321208, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.
    19. Katie Devenish & Sébastien Desbureaux & Simon Willcock & Julia P. G. Jones, 2022. "On track to achieve no net loss of forest at Madagascar’s biggest mine," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(6), pages 498-508, June.
    20. K Hervé Dakpo & Laure Latruffe & Yann Desjeux & Philippe Jeanneaux, 2021. "Latent Class Modelling for a Robust Assessment of Productivity: Application to French Grazing Livestock Farms," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 760-781, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2405.08159. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.