Rising prices of agricultural commodities have renewed concerns about
constraints to agricultural productivity. To assess productivity trends, total factor productivity (TFP) is generally preferred to partial productivity indexes as an indicator of
technical and efficiency changes because it is more closely related to the unit costs of
production. But measuring TFP is demanding of data, and developing comprehensive
and comparable indexes of international agricultural TFP has been challenging. This
study proposes a growth accounting approach, using FAO data on quantity changes
in inputs and outputs and aggregating input changes using cost shares derived from
other sources, as a consistent way of constructing agricultural TFP indexes for world
agriculture. This produces aggregate growth rates for agricultural output, input and
TFP at the country, regional and global levels. Results suggest that the rate of agricultural TFP growth accelerated in recent decades, especially in developing countries. Most regions of the world now rely on productivity-based growth rather than
resource-based growth to raise agricultural output.