摘要：Increased productivity is a key to a healthy and thriving economy. Consequently, thetrend in productivity, economywide, is one of the most closely watched of our commoneconomic performance indicators. Agriculture, in particular, has been a very successfulsector of the U.S. economy in terms of productivity growth. The U.S. farm sector hasprovided an abundance of output while using inputs efficiently. Agricultural produc-tivity growth has been an important source of U.S. economic growth throughout thecentury, but the years since 1940 have seen an even faster growth in agricultural produc-tivity. The annual average increase in productivity from 1948 to 1994 was 1.94 percent.This reflects an annual growth in output of 1.88 percent per year and an actual declinein agricultural inputs of 0.06 percent per year. This report describes changes in U.S.agricultural productivity, and its output and input components, for 1948-94. The reportalso discusses factors that have affected productivity trends and provides detailed, tech-nical information about the USDA system for calculating productivity.
