by MATTEO GABRIELE CELDRAN, Student Intern from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, US
and MARIE ANNETTE DACUL, Executive Director, UA&P Center for Food and Agri Business
AGRICULTURE OUTPUT in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region has grown significantly during the past four decades because of improvements in agricultural productivity. Increases in agricultural productivity affects poverty reduction, malnutrition prevention, and environmental resilience enhancement (Agnew and Hendery, 2023).
The most complete indicator of agricultural productivity is the Agricultural Total Factor Productivity (TFP). The Agri TFP compares the total input of land, labor, capital, and materials to the overall output of crops, animal products, and aquaculture products. It includes a broader range of inputs, unlike other metrics like crop yield per hectare or agricultural value added per worker, as it reflects the average productivity of all inputs used across all agriculture and aquaculture production (USDA/ERS, 2021).
This article examines the growth of agricultural productivity in key ASEAN countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It discusses the sources of growth in agriculture and the trends in agricultural outputs, inputs, and TFP of the said countries for the past 40 years from 1981 to 2021. It also outlines lessons culled from the experiences of the selected upper-middle income countries: Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
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