World Agricultural Production, Resource Use, and Productivity, 1961–2020

Over the past six decades, the role of agriculture has undergone a vast transformation in the world economy. Agricultural output increased nearly fourfold, while the global population grew by 2.6 times, leading to a 53-percent increase in agricultural output per capita between 1961 and 2020. Real food prices declined relative to the general price level, supplying more affordable and diverse diets. Most of the growth in agricultural production was achieved by raising productivity rather than expanding resource use. There was a pronounced and sustained shift in the location of production to the Global South (developing countries), which between 1961 and 2020 increased their share of global agricultural output from 44 to 73 percent. The composition of world agricultural production, however, remained generally stable, changing slightly to include a larger share of oil crops, nonruminant livestock products, and aquaculture. Global agricultural land area increased by 8 percent to 4.76 billion hectares, or 32 percent of the world’s land area. The total number of people working on farms peaked in 2003 at just over 1 billion and then declined to 841 million by 2020, working on approximately 600 million farms. Major technological developments included the spread of Green Revolution crop genetic improvements, increased fertilizer use in the Global South, and the development of biotechnology and genetically modified crops offering pest and disease resistance. Further, aquaculture was developed as an important food source. However, by the decade of the 2010s, the pace of output and productivity growth in world agriculture slowed, food prices rose in real terms, the number of food-insecure people increased, and pressure to expand the use of natural resources to produce food intensified.