USA: Agricultural prod. grew by 1,3% annually

TFP growth has been a robust driver of productivity increases in the modern era, averaging 1.5% per year since 1948, a rate that was maintained through the 1991-2000 decade. However, TFP growth has slowed and is now essentially zero in the most recently estimated period of 2012-21. The slowdown may stem from agriculture-specific factors, such as stagnating levels of public research and development expenditure. It may also be influenced by broader factors, such as slowing technological progress in other domains and a general tendency for innovation to get harder. However, slowing progress in agriculture may simply be following a slowdown in innovation across the wider non-farm economy. Despite the slowdown in TFP, growth in primary factors (land, labour, capital) and other farm inputs has kept output growth relatively robust, at about 1.3% over the period of 2012-21 (OECD, 2024).