Productivity Growth and Resources Degradation in Pakistan's Punjab

Productivity Growth and Resources Degradation in Pakistan's Punjab PDF Author: Derek Byerlee
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1302021060
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
November 2000 The introduction of green revolution technologies in wheat and rice production in Pakistan's Punjab province reversed the country's food crisis and stimulated rapid agricultural and economic growth. But resource degradation through intensification, monocropping, and mismanagement of water resources has offset much of the productivity effect of technological change. The introduction of green revolution technologies in wheat and rice production in Asia in the mid-1960s reversed the food crisis and stimulated rapid agricultural and economic growth. But the sustain-ability of this intensification strategy is being questioned in light of the heavy use of external inputs and growing evidence of a slowdown in productivity growth and degradation of the resource base. Ali and Byerlee address the critical issue of long-term productivity and the sustainability of Pakistan's irrigated agriculture. To estimate changes in total factor productivity in four production systems of Punjab province, they assemble district-level data on 33 crops, 8 livestock products, and 17 input categories. They find that average annual growth in total factor productivity was moderately high (1.26 percent) for both crops and livestock for the period 1966-94, but observe wide variation in productivity growth by cropping system. A second, disaggregated data set on soil and water quality reveals significant resource degradation. The authors use the two data sets to decompose the effects of technical change and resource degradation through application of a cost function. They find that continuous and widespread resource degradation (as measured by soil and water quality variables) has had a significant negative effect on productivity, especially in the wheat-rice system, where resource degradation has more than offset the productivity effects of technological change. Degradation of the health of the agro-ecosystem was related in part to modern technologies, monocropping, and mismanagement of water resources. The results call for urgent analysis of technology and policy options to arrest the degradation of resources. This paper--a joint product of the Rural Development Department and the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center--is part of a larger effort to support the development of sustainable intensification of irrigated agricultural systems. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project "Total Factor Productivity Growth in Post-Green Revolution Agriculture of Pakistan and Northwest India." Mubarik Ali may be contacted at [email protected].

Productivity Growth and Resources Degradation in Pakistan's Punjab

Productivity Growth and Resources Degradation in Pakistan's Punjab PDF Author: Derek Byerlee
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1302021060
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38

Get Book Here

Book Description
November 2000 The introduction of green revolution technologies in wheat and rice production in Pakistan's Punjab province reversed the country's food crisis and stimulated rapid agricultural and economic growth. But resource degradation through intensification, monocropping, and mismanagement of water resources has offset much of the productivity effect of technological change. The introduction of green revolution technologies in wheat and rice production in Asia in the mid-1960s reversed the food crisis and stimulated rapid agricultural and economic growth. But the sustain-ability of this intensification strategy is being questioned in light of the heavy use of external inputs and growing evidence of a slowdown in productivity growth and degradation of the resource base. Ali and Byerlee address the critical issue of long-term productivity and the sustainability of Pakistan's irrigated agriculture. To estimate changes in total factor productivity in four production systems of Punjab province, they assemble district-level data on 33 crops, 8 livestock products, and 17 input categories. They find that average annual growth in total factor productivity was moderately high (1.26 percent) for both crops and livestock for the period 1966-94, but observe wide variation in productivity growth by cropping system. A second, disaggregated data set on soil and water quality reveals significant resource degradation. The authors use the two data sets to decompose the effects of technical change and resource degradation through application of a cost function. They find that continuous and widespread resource degradation (as measured by soil and water quality variables) has had a significant negative effect on productivity, especially in the wheat-rice system, where resource degradation has more than offset the productivity effects of technological change. Degradation of the health of the agro-ecosystem was related in part to modern technologies, monocropping, and mismanagement of water resources. The results call for urgent analysis of technology and policy options to arrest the degradation of resources. This paper--a joint product of the Rural Development Department and the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center--is part of a larger effort to support the development of sustainable intensification of irrigated agricultural systems. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project "Total Factor Productivity Growth in Post-Green Revolution Agriculture of Pakistan and Northwest India." Mubarik Ali may be contacted at [email protected].

Integrated Land and Water Management for Food and Environmental Security

Integrated Land and Water Management for Food and Environmental Security PDF Author:
Publisher: IWMI
ISBN: 9290905433
Category : Agricultural ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description


Response to Land Degradation

Response to Land Degradation PDF Author: E M Bridges
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482279878
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
This work is intended for advanced readers interested in methods of sustainable land management - the prevention and control of land degradation. It offers a coherent view of the situation concerning land degradation and the human response to the problem. It is generally recognized that technological solutions alone cannot solve the problems of land degradation. This book discusses the role of land use and land management policies, programmes, insitutional innovations, and economic incentives for the control and prevention of land degradation. Special attention is given to legal issues at the international level and in individual countries.

Agrobiodiversity Conservation and Economic Development

Agrobiodiversity Conservation and Economic Development PDF Author: Andreas Kontoleon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134039107
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Pt. 1. Policy perspectives -- pt. 2. Multiple objectives, trade-offs and synergies between productivity and agrobiodiversity -- pt. 3. Market and non-market institutions for agrobiodiversity conservation.

Sustainable Agriculture and the International Rice-Wheat System

Sustainable Agriculture and the International Rice-Wheat System PDF Author: Rattan Lal
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1135531528
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
Addressing a topic of major importance to the maintenance of world food supplies, this reference identifies knowledge gaps, defines priorities, and formulates recommendations for the improvement of the rice-wheat farming system. The book reveals new systems of rice intensification and management and illustrates the application of no-till and conser

Soil Degradation

Soil Degradation PDF Author: Sara J. Scherr
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 0896296318
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
Evaluating the impact of soil degradation o food security. Past and present effects of soil degradation. Future effects of soil degradation and threats to developing-country food security. Policy and research priorities.

New Directions for Smallholder Agriculture

New Directions for Smallholder Agriculture PDF Author: Peter B. R. Hazell
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191003565
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
The majority of the poor and hungry people in the world live on small farms and struggle to subsist on too little land with low input - low yield technologies. At the same time, many other smallholders are successfully intensifying and succeeding as farm businesses, often in combination with diversification into off-farm sources of income. This book examines the growing divergence between subsistence and business oriented small farms, and discusses how this divergence has been impacted by population growth, trends in farm size distribution, urbanization, off-farm income diversification, and the globalization of agricultural value chains. It finds that policy makers need to differentiate more sharply between different types of small farms than they did in the past, both in terms of their potential contributions towards achieving national economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food security goals, and the types of assistance they need. The book distinguishes between smallholders that are business oriented, subsistence oriented, and at various stages of transition to the non-farm economy, and discusses strategies appropriate for assisting each type. The book draws on a wealth of recent experience at IFAD and elsewhere to help identify best practice approaches.

Wheat Science

Wheat Science PDF Author: Om Prakash Gupta
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000923495
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
Globally, significant work has been done to enhance our current understanding of the nutritional and anti-nutritional properties, processing, storage, bioactivity, and product development of wheat, opening new frontiers for further improvement. Wheat Science: Nutritional and Anti-Nutritional Properties, Processing, Storage, Bioactivity, and Product Development addresses the topics associated with the advances in understanding the wheat biochemical, nutritional, and rheological quality. Improving crop varieties by either conventional breeding or transgenic methods to obtain nutritionally enhanced crops has the advantage of making a one-time investment in research and development to have sustainable products. Features: Includes topics associated with the nutritional composition and anti-nutritional properties Addresses the effects of different processing technologies on flour yield and end products Reviews the effects of storage on nutritional, baking and rheological quality, organoleptic quality, etc. Processing and storage technologies have impacted the nutritional quality and the bioavailability of nutrients in wheat. Due to its peculiar grain protein composition, especially gluten protein, wheat has extensive usage in making numerous end products, eaten round the clock. Researchers have demonstrated a significant effect of alteration of flour-processing technologies on the rheological quality of end products. This book provides a holistic understanding and covers recent developments of wheat science under one umbrella. Emphasis is placed on current trends and advances in nutritional and anti-nutritional properties, processing, storage, bioactivity, and product development. Additionally, efforts have been made to compile the available information on the application of different ingredients of wheat in the industry and pharma sectors.

Harvesting Prosperity

Harvesting Prosperity PDF Author: Keith Fuglie
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464814295
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Back cover blurb Rising agricultural productivity has driven improvements in living standards for millennia. Today, redoubling that effort in developing countries is critical to reducing extreme poverty, ensuring food security for an increasing global population, and adapting to changes in climate. This volume presents fresh analysis on global trends and sources of productivity growth in agriculture and offers new perspectives on the drivers of that growth. It argues that gains from the reallocation of land and labor are not as promising as believed, so policy needs to focus more on the generation and dissemination of new technologies, which requires stepping up national research efforts. Yet, in many of the poorest nations, a serious research spending gap has emerged precisely at the time when the challenges faced by agriculture are intensifying. The book focuses on how this problem can be redressed in the public sector, as well as on reforms aimed at mobilizing new private sector actors and value chains, particularly creating a better enabling environment, reforming trade regulations, introducing new products, and strengthening intellectual property rights. On the demand side, the book examines what recent research reveals about policies to reduce the barriers impeding smallholder farmers from adopting new technologies. Harvesting Prosperity is the fourth volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers. “As rightly argued by the authors, growth in agricultural productivity is the essential instrument to promote development in low-income agriculture-based countries. Achieving this requires research and development, upgrading of universities, reinforcement of farmer capacities, removal of constraints to adoption, and the development of inclusive value chains with interlinked contracts. As important, such efforts also need to be placed within a context of comprehensive agricultural, rural, and structural transformations. However, in many countries implementation of the requisite policies has been lagging. This book, with contributions from many top experts in the field, provides the most up-to-date presentation of this argument and explains in detail how to successfully put its ideas into practice. Governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations need to study it carefully to turn the promise of agriculture for development into a reality.“ Alain de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet Professors of the Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley

Feeding the World

Feeding the World PDF Author: Giovanni Federico
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837723
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat neglected, success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an increasing variety of products at falling prices, even as it has released a growing number of workers to the rest of the economy. This book, a comprehensive history of world agriculture during this period, explains how these feats were accomplished. Feeding the World synthesizes two hundred years of agricultural development throughout the world, providing all essential data and extensive references to the literature. It covers, systematically, all the factors that have affected agricultural performance: environment, accumulation of inputs, technical progress, institutional change, commercialization, agricultural policies, and more. The last chapter discusses the contribution of agriculture to modern economic growth. The book is global in its reach and analysis, and represents a grand synthesis of an enormous topic.