Agricultural Productivity growth and sustainable development: analysis of select Asian countries

The present study analyses agricultural productivity differences due to change in agricultural technology adoption, across the selected Asian countries. The data were drawn from Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for thirteen Asian countries from 1991–2014. Analysis of agricultural productivity growth and convergence were discussed. The TFP growth was measured by the data envelopment analysis (DEA) to derive Malmquist Productivity Index. The results shows that there is a wide difference in agricultural productivity across countries in Asia. There exists high variation in TFP growth and this tends to be diverging overtime. There is no catch-up and convergence among the select Asian countries.