Productivity is defined as increasing output per unit of input. In agriculture, there are a variety of ways that productivity is discussed and measured, with much debate about the relative costs and benefits of achieving greater productivity. Productivity per plant or animal can be gained by increasing yields, for example, through breeding not simply for a larger quantity of the crop, but also for higher pest and disease resistance. Higher yields per unit of land can also be reached with more efficient cultivation practices and application of appropriate inputs. Conservation agriculture techniques, by improving soil condition, help to conserve and increase the productivity of water, by getting more “crop per drop.” Other productivity-enhancing measures come from reducing losses from inadequate post-harvest storage, from new technological solutions and using better protective techniques, such as IPM. Productivity per unit of labor is improved through the use of more efficient tools during land preparation, cultivation, and harvesting.

As the world’s population continues to grow in a context of increasingly severe short-term weather events and longer term climate change, it is critical to find sustainable solutions to increasing both total agricultural output and individual factor efficiency to maintain adequate global food supplies. Doing so in a way that allows agricultural producers to earn a living and a profit is a challenge.

Collectively, the Feed the Future Innovation Labs for Collaborative Research continue to make important contributions towards increasing agricultural productivity while raising producer incomes and improving the natural environment. A few recent examples include the work of the Pulse CRSP to combine conventional and molecular approaches with participatory farmer research to increase resistance to both biotic and abiotic stresses in beans in Ecuador and Rwanda. The IPM Innovation Lab is testing ecologically-based IPM techniques to raise the productivity of high-value horticultural crops in East Africa. The SANREM Innovation Lab is working in western Kenya and eastern Uganda conservation agriculture techniques to arrest soil degradation, erosion, and potentially reverse declining yields of maize and beans. INTSORMIL has successfully launched new, higher yielding varieties of sorghum in Central America for use as cattle fodder. The AquaFish CRSP developed higher yielding sustainable rice-fish ponds in Mali.