Total Factor and Relative Agricultural Productivity and Deforestation

Deforestation is a significant global source of greenhouse gas emissions and an historical contributor to climate change. Agricultural production is the primary driver of tropical deforestation, and some have suggested that agricultural productivity improvements should be a part of the strategy for addressing deforestation. Land-use projections that model crop yield improvements support this perspective (e.g. Sands and Leimbach 2003; Baker et al. 2013; Havlík et al. 2013). Recent studies, however, have pointed out the importance of considering total factor productivity (TFP) versus partial factor productivity (PFP) growth, such as in crop yields, where PFP can be misleading (Nin et al. 2003). Reprinted by permission of the American Agricultural Economics Association