The TFP Growth Frontier: Plateaus and Progress in Agricultural Productivity Growth

Abstract

After decades of progress, global agricultural productivity growth is plateauing. For the past ten years, total factor productivity (TFP)—a key measure of how efficiently inputs are transformed into outputs—has failed to keep pace with the growth rate needed to sustainably meet our agricultural needs by 2050. Reversing this slowdown is essential not only to meet rising and evolving demand for outputs like food, fiber, and raw materials, but also to secure farmer livelihoods, conserve natural resources, and strengthen national and rural economies. Closing the 1.3% average annual gap in TFP growth requires a clear understanding of the reasons for plateauing growth. The 2025 GAP Report™, The TFP Growth Frontier: Plateaus and Progress in Agricultural Productivity Growth, introduces a new conceptual model—the TFP Growth Frontier—to help diagnose the causes of stagnation and chart a path toward renewed, sustainable productivity growth. Drawing on historical data, empirical research, and global case studies, the report identifies four technological domains that have historically shaped productivity trajectories:

Extensification – Growth is driven by bringing new land under cultivation and increasing basic input use. Input Intensification – Productivity accelerates through the adoption of improved seeds, fertilizers, mechanization, and irrigation. Efficiency Optimization – Resource-use efficiency rises with the adoption of digital tools, precision agriculture, and advanced genetics. System Integration – Productivity gains are achieved through multi-functional systems that integrate ecological, technological, and social innovations.

Each domain forms a sub-frontier with a natural “growth ceiling” that limits productivity gains without further innovation, investment, or systemic change. Together, these ceilings define the TFP Growth Frontier—a conceptual envelope representing the upper bound of productivity growth across domains. This model shows that productivity growth can occur in four ways:

scaling adoption to close the gap to the current frontier, pushing the frontier outward through innovation, transitioning to more advanced paradigms, or leapfrogging directly to later-stage paradigms.

The report uses this model to explore a critical case: the slowdown of U.S. productivity growth. Once a global productivity leader, growth has stagnated in the last decade due to diminishing returns from mature technologies, underinvestment in research, slowing adoption of advanced technologies, and mounting ecological constraints. The TFP Growth Frontier helps explain this trend and identifies policy and investment priorities—such as revitalizing agricultural research systems, aligning market incentives, and investing in next-generation technologies and system integration—that can restore momentum. The TFP Growth Frontier: Plateaus and Progress in Agricultural Productivity Growth calls for a targeted and differentiated approach to addressing plateaus and capturing growth momentum—one that anticipates paradigm transitions, builds enabling environments, and repositions agriculture as a leading solution to interconnected global challenges.