In the early stage of learning about an area, I have to look up a lot of terms. Here are some definitions and distinctions I recently learned while studying agriculture:https://rootsofprogress.org/some-agricultural-terminology …
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Replying to @rootsofprogress
intensive agr uses more labor/capital while extensive - more land. modern agr isnt necessarily more intensive, e.g. early 20th century midwest farmers as well as their soviet counterparts had quite low yields of <1 t/ha. They traded capital for labor but still used a lot of land
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Replying to @MikeTsayper @rootsofprogress
I was going to make a related comment on your statement that "Extensive agriculture just means you’re not very efficient and so you use a lot of land to produce a given amount." - I'd avoid linking it to efficiency. If you have lots of land and not much labour or other inputs /1
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... then extensive is basically the efficient way to use resources. Conversely, you could be using tons of inputs (intensive) in a highly inefficient way. The distinction matters: broadly speaking, global ag output growth before 1960 was extensive growth, 2/
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... and after WWII intensification happens. But in recent decades most growth has come from "efficiency gains" - ie not from more fertiliser, pesticides, etc. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/international-agricultural-productivity/summary-findings/ … 3/pic.twitter.com/hO3NzX6ESj
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Caveat: "Efficiency" or "total factor productivity" here is basically an indicator of what we don't know, i.e. a source of growth other than the measured inputs. My money is on better genetics driving most of this; you can debate whether that counts as "more intensive" or not 4/
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Anyway, the distinction matters because we know that e.g. nitrogen use efficiency is ridiculously low around the world: much of the nitrogen applied to fields washes away into soil and water. So, input use shouldn't be equated with efficiency. 5/
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Good point. When I said “efficiency” I really meant “land efficiency”, output per unit land area. You're right that there are many axes of efficiency
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