This year’s record corn yield of nearly 1.6 billion bushels is a good example of the growth of Nebraska agricultural productivity over the last 50 years.

A new report from the USDA Economic Research Service shows that the level of U.S. farm output in 2008 was 158 percent above its level in 1948, growing at an average annual rate of 1.58 percent.

According to ERS, aggregate input use increased a mere 0.06 percent annually, so the positive growth in farm sector output was very substantially due to productivity growth. This contrasts with a 3.6-percent annual output increase in the private nonfarm sector, with productivity growth accounting for a little more than a third of the economic growth.

Major findings of the data include:

• Agricultural output contracted during 1999-2002; measured productivity growth slowed. But the return of favorable weather in 2003 and 2004 led to sharp increases in output and productivity, with productivity growing by 4.0 percent in 2003 and 5.7 percent in 2004. On average, then, productivity continued to grow rapidly over the 1999-2008 period, by 1.74 percent per year.
• U.S. agricultural productivity growth compares favorably to agricultural productivity growth in other industrialized countries, and to productivity growth in the overall U.S. economy .All but four States exhibited positive rates of growth in agricultural output over the 1960-2004 period. Output expanded most rapidly in Arkansas, growing an average 2.8 percent per year.
• Every State exhibited a positive average annual rate of productivity growth over the entire 45-year period. Average annual rates of growth ranged from 2.6 percent for Oregon to 0.5 percent for Oklahoma. California and Florida had the highest relative levels of productivity in 2004.

The development of irrigated agriculture in Nebraska has propelled ag productivity since 1960. According to ERS, Nebraksa’s annual ag productivity growth has increased from 1.33 percent annually in 1960 to 3.617 percent in 2004.

The made Nebraska the fifth most productive ag state in the nation behind California, Iowa, Texas and Illinois.