In addition to COVID-19, agricultural communities battle pandemic-scale pest and disease outbreaks every year. The health and productivity of people, livestock, and crops are all vulnerable, and resilience in the face of these threats has never been more important.
The stories below describe how the GAP Initiative’s Supporting Partners are working with communities around the world to improve their productivity and resilience.
Innovations in plant breeding are enabling farmers to adopt new crop varieties that are better suited to respond to unique environmental stresses as they occur around the world. For instance, Bayer’s work to develop a short stature corn hybrid will reduce the risk of crop loss due to lodging, enable mid-season disease treatment, and open the door to even higher yields.
Corteva Agriscience™, Land O’Lakes Venture37, Bidco Land O’Lakes, Forage Genetics International (FGI), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) have forged an alliance that aims to empower 5,000 women smallholder dairy farmers by increasing their productivity and incomes. This unique partnership is using data and technology to improve livelihoods of women smallholder dairy farmers and build resilience of local food systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a drastic shift in the importance of virtual tools, as the world rushed to adopt and embrace remote work — including farmers. With safety measures like shelter-in-place and social distancing enacted in response to the pandemic, associates for manufacturers had to embrace virtual assistance for their clients. John Deere dealers in Latin America pivoted to a remote model, with measurable success.
African Swine Fever (ASF) is a highly contagious, incurable and fatal viral disease that affects hogs. Smithfield’s strong biosecurity measures keep animals safe and healthy on farms. They also support efforts to help feed a growing world population, provide jobs in local communities, and sustain other businesses in the global agricultural supply chain.
Building sustainable agriculture systems that can withstand shocks like pandemics doesn’t mean only investing directly in agriculture, but in the fabric of society. The Mosaic Company, The Mosaic Company Foundation and The Mosaic Institute in Brazil have a long history of investing in communities in ways that contribute to their vitality. That work has never been more important than during a pandemic.
Soybeans are heavily impacted by root and stem rot diseases caused by oomycete pathogens, fungal-like microbes that cause highly destructive plant diseases. A team of researchers led by Virginia Tech developed tools using genomic advances that pave the way to new diagnostic tools, disease-resistant soybeans, and managing dangerous pathogens.
A recent report from the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) Foundation has found that investments in the CGIAR system yield a ten-to-one return on investment in low- and middle-income countries, with additional follow-on benefits impacting higher income and donor countries as well. Over the last 50 years of CGIAR’s operations, approximately $60 billion have been […]
Traditional rice farming techniques in India are becoming environmentally unsustainable. Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) is an alternative resource-efficient technology that minimizes the environmental impact of rice farming while improving farmer livelihoods. Corteva Agriscience’s integrated rice farming program helps farmers better understand and realize the benefits of DSR. Rice farming in Asia Rice is the staple food […]
The Mosaic Company is working to equip farmers with the tools to harness the fertility power of soil health. Through new products like the Sus-Terra Fertilizer and partnerships with BioConsortia, Sound Agriculture, and AgBiome, The Mosaic Company is forging a new future for fertilizer technology that enhances and utilizes soil’s natural ecological microbial biome. What […]
Deere & Company is not only working to improve productivity on the farm but also in the factory by bringing connectivity to rural America. Deere’s manufacturing facilities are very complex environments that rely heavily on internet connectivity and access. Advanced internet connectivity enables Deere & Company to fully embrace the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, […]
A coalition of researchers and scientists at Bayer Crop Science are working together to protect the world’s most popular banana variety from the Tropical Race 4 fungal pathogen. TR4, also named Panama Disease, is a new fungal pathogen threatening the future of the Cavendish banana, which accounts for 95% of banana production. Over 400 million […]
ARE TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY AND YIELD THE SAME THING?
NO!
Yield and total factor productivity are ratios of outputs to inputs, but they are not the same, and the distinction matters.
Yield measures output per unit of a single input, for example, the amount of crops grown on a hectare of land. Yields can increase through productivity growth, but they can also increase by applying more inputs, called input intensification. Therefore, an increase in yield may or may not represent improvements in sustainability.
Total factor productivity captures the interaction between multiple agricultural inputs and outputs. (Ortiz-Bobea et al., 2021) TFP growth indicates that more farmers generate more crops, livestock, and aquaculture products with the same amount or less land, labor, fertilizer, feed, machinery, and livestock. As a result, TFP is a powerful metric for evaluating and monitoring the sustainability of agricultural systems.
