Technological Progress in US Agriculture: Implications for Biofuel Production

Federal Aviation Administration2021PDFJournal ArticleTaheripour, FarzadScott, DonHurt, Cristopher ATyner, Wallace E.United States. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and EnvironmentPurdue UniversityUnited States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and EnergyUnited States. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and EnvironmentUnited StatesAgricultureBiomass fuelsProductionResearchEconomic impactsProductivityLivestockSustainable developmentFoodtechnological progressUS agriculturefeedASCENTag.econ.30980013-C-AJFE-PU-019, 029This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).This paper evaluates in a holistic way major trends in US production of food, feed, and biofuel commodities over the period 1961 2014. It is motivated by literature that examines parts of the changes but does not integrate them. We develop a comprehensive data set and then conduct analysis of the major trends tha t emerge. We identify eight major trends and then combine them to four major themes. The first theme is the huge gain in agricultural productivity over this period. An important component of this theme is that the productivity gain was sufficient to achiev e substantial total production growth as agricultural land declined over the period. Second, there has been a major transformation of the livestock sector as less efficient and more expensive beef has been replaced by more efficient and less expensive poul try. As this change has happened, the livestock sector has become more land efficient, less land used in livestock. The third major change is that US calorie production is now substantially more than the needs for food and feed. Finally, the first three ma jor themes have enabled the fourth, which is growth of US renewable fuel production, while agricultural land declined over time119