Is the Pursuit of Improving Agricultural Productivity Incompatible with the Effort of Transition to Sustainable Farming System?

Abstract

Increasing interest in agricultural environmental issues seems to be leading to the decline of concern for agricultural productivity. Parting from the pursuit of agricultural productivity is regarded as an essential of transition to a sustainable farming system (SFS) among some of journalists and even the researchers in the field of agricultural economics.
This paper critically examines this view. The main conclusions are as follows. The agricultural policy since the Agricultural Basic Law (1961) has paid special attention to the labor saving-biased efficiency standard, in response to labor shortage in agriculture, whereas it neglected the improvement in overall productivity of industrial input and natural resources. The labor saving-biased farming system, featuring the substitution of fuel energy and agricultural chemicals for farm labor, has caused a decline in economic efficiency of agricultural industry, not to mention a rise in environmental deterioration. The transition to a SFS therefore calls for improved and efficient use of industrial input and natural resources, or agricultural productivity. To simultaneously achieve economic and environmental benefits from farming activities, it is necessary to shift away from the labor saving-biased efficiency standard to total factor productivity.