There is a strong societal need to evaluate and understand the sustainability of biofuels, especially because of the significant increases in production mandated by many countries, including the United States. Sustainability will be a strong factor in the regulatory environment and investments in biofuels. Biomass feedstock production is an important contributor to environmental, social, and ec...

The structure of U.S. agricultural production changed dramatically during the 20 Century. Major technological innovations transformed the relationship between agricultural inputs and outputs, and contributed to rapid increases in agricultural productivity. However, evidence is mounting that suggests we have entered a new era, with substantially lower rates of productivity growth. In this articl...

one of the core elements of water management and increase agricultural productivity is the efficient use of available resources. due to increasing demand for agricultural products, increase the productivity of scarce resources is essential. optimal utilization of these resources, in addition to meet the demand of the community as a major goal, can also increase operating income to be followed. ...

China's water resources are under increasing pressure from socioeconomic development, diet shifts, and climate change. Agriculture still concentrates most of the national water withdrawal. Moreover, a spatial mismatch in water and arable land availability--with abundant agricultural land and little water resources in the north--increases water scarcity and results in virtual water transfers fro...

This study attempts to empirically examine the impact of democracy on agricultural productivity by estimating a cross-country agricultural production function. In the regressions, we control the education, economic freedom, climate and geographic variables, in order to see if democracy can still explain a significant portion of the heterogeneity of agricultural productivities across countries. ...

Tom Scherer Extension Agricultural Engineer The presence of salts and high water tables in North Dakota soils due to an extended climactic wet cycle recently has stimulated interest in the installation of tile drainage systems. The tile controls the water table and encourages the leaching and removal of salts from the soil above the tile lines. This improves soil productivity, culminating in im...

This paper investigates the growth experience of one country in detail in order to enhance our understanding of important factors that a¤ect economic growth. Using a two sector model we identify the low productivity growth in the agricultural sector as the main reason for the divergence of income per capita between Turkey and its peer countries. An extended model that incorporates distortions i...

Estimates of the employment structure, agricultural output, and agricultural labour productivity are developed for the leading European countries from 1300 to 1800. The employment estimates are developed from estimates of the total, urban, and rural populations. The output estimates are derived by positing a demand curve for agricultural goods.

One of the objectives of agricultural development in Botswana is the increase of agricultural productivity in both arable and livestock production in order to increase farm incomes and thus help to make agriculture a sustainable activity. This paper looks at the challenges that Botswana faces in meeting this objective while minimizing any land degradation that may accompany the process of incre...

If the balance between availability and requirement drives the value, then the economic value of water in agriculture should be remarkably higher in water-scarce regions when compared to water-rich regions. Similarly, in water-abundant regions, if the land is scarce, then the incremental return per unit of land should be higher than that in land-rich region that are water-scarce. These hypothes...