Global agricultural productivity growth is in decline

According to the United Nations, the global population is expected to reach around 9.7 billion by 2050. Feeding this growing population will require farmers to produce more food while making better use of available resources. IIASA researchers collaborated with colleagues in the United States to coauthor the 2026 GAP Report titled, Restarting Growth: The Role of Regenerative Agriculture in Productivity Growth and Profitability, which examines this worrying slowdown and explores ways to boost agricultural productivity sustainably.

Global agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) measures how efficiently farmers turn resources such as land, labor, machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, water, and animal feed into agricultural output such as crops and livestock products. To meet future demands, TFP growth needs to exceed 2% per year. Between 2015 and 2024, however, it averaged just 0.63% per year.

This means that between 2015 and 2024, global agricultural productivity growth was less than one-third of the rate recorded in 2001–2010, widening the gap between current growth and what is needed to meet future food demand. Recent studies also show that, over the past decade, using more resources rather than improving efficiency has once again become the largest single driver of global agricultural output growth. This leaves producers more exposed to market volatility stemming from geopolitical tensions, extreme weather and climate risks, and disruptions in trade and supply chains.

“Policies and the political environment play a major role in productivity growth, shaping the conditions under which producers invest, use new technologies, and change management practices,” says IIASA researcher and report coauthor Tassos Haniotis. “By purchasing inputs, farmers engage simultaneously in an activity that jointly delivers economic and environmental outcomes. The contribution of this activity to sustainable productivity growth largely depends on whether policies address these challenges jointly instead of splitting them and polarizing the debate around them.”

The report examines the potential of regenerative agriculture — farming practices aimed at improving soil health and protecting natural resources — to address declining productivity rates, improve farm profitability, and strengthen long-term resilience. It reviews global and regional productivity trends, assesses the adoption of regenerative practices and their effects on productivity and profitability, and explores the role of EU agricultural policies in linking productivity gains with improved environmental performance. It also identifies the research, decision-support tools, and policy approaches needed to translate regenerative agriculture’s potential into measurable, sustainable productivity growth. IIASA researchers from the Integrated Biosphere Futures Research Group of the Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program coauthored the chapter exploring regenerative agriculture and productivity in the EU, drawing on three decades of farm-level data from 213 farming regions.

“Through this report and our continued work with partners in the US, as well as across the world, we aim to turn growing interest in regenerative agriculture into tangible progress in productivity, delivering lasting co-benefits for farmers, economies, the environment, and society as a whole,” says IIASA researcher and study coauthor Tamás Krisztin.

The analysis shows that although agricultural output growth in the EU has declined over the past six decades, productivity growth has increasingly become its main driver. The researchers also suggest that wider adoption of proven management practices and technologies is key to strengthening future productivity.

One of the key findings concerns agri-environmental and climate payments — a key EU policy instrument for supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture. The authors find no consistent relationship between higher agri-environmental payments and higher productivity growth, underscoring the importance of improving how environmental outcomes are measured and rewarded. Looking ahead, the chapter suggests that future agricultural policy could increasingly rely on payments linked to measurable results, supported by effective monitoring and verification systems.

Read the full report