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Were U.S. Crop Yields Random in Recent Years?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2015

Kuang-hsing T. Lin  and
Stanley K. Seaver
Kuang-hsing T. Lin
Affiliation:
Fort Valley State College
Stanley K. Seaver
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Extract

After three to four decades of substantial increase, yields per acre of major U.S. crops appear to have tapered off. The average annual rate of growth in crop yields decreased markedly from 2.7 percent for the 1950s to 1.8 percent for the 1960s, and finally fell to 0.1 percent for the first half of the 1970s. Scientists commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences to investigate agriculture production efficiency first discovered the problem [6]. Concern about the situation was expressed in the literature early this year by both a plant physiologist and agricultural economists. If a crop yield series has reached and remains on a plateau, it would conform with what is expected in a stationary or trendless series. Therefore, examination of the leveling of crop yields can be accomplished by testing for the presence or absence of a trend in the series.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , December 1978 , pp. 139 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Southern Agricultural Economics Association 1978

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