Global agriculture has transformed over the last six decades, including where farmers are operating.
A research economist and co-author of the recent USDA report sheds light on the location of the growth.
According to Keith Fuglie, “The location of where that output is coming from has really shifted from what we call in the report the ‘Global North’. That’s kind of the high-income countries of North America, Europe, and then Asia-Pacific, like Japan and Australia, and it’s shifted to the ‘Global South,’ Latin America, Africa, and the rest of Asia.”
The report also found that irrigated areas increased more than double between 1961 and 2020, with two-thirds of the world’s surface area being used for it.
