Crop level productivity in the Eastern counties of England, 1970-97

Total factor productivity (TFP) measurement is usually only possible at the sector level, but data for 1970 to 1997, for the Eastern. counties, allows the construction of disaggregated TFP indices for sugar, potatoes, oilseed rape, winter wheat and spring barley. The weighted average of these five TFP indices gives a crop TFP, which can be compared with the sector index for the UK, showing that crops have fared better than animal agriculture. Both show a downturn it? productivity in the 1990s, but there are important differences between crops. Over the period, productivity has grown very rapidly for oilseed rape, closely followed by sugar, while wheat and barley showed moderate growth and productivity in potatoes stagnated. The aggregate TFP is decomposed to show that 77% of the growth is attributable to the within-crop TFP gains, while the remaining 23% is accounted for by switching to crops with higher growth rates, especially oilseed rape.