Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:16:34.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moving Matters: The Effect of Location on Crop Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2015

Jason M. Beddow  and
Philip G. Pardey
Jason M. Beddow
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, 1994 Buford Ave., 248 Ruttan Hall, Saint Paul, MN 55108. Email: [email protected].
Philip G. Pardey
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, 1994 Buford Ave., 248 Ruttan Hall, Saint Paul, MN 55108. E-mail: [email protected]. Both are affiliated with the University of Minnesota's International Science and Technology Practice and Policy (InSTePP) Center.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

U.S corn output increased from 1.8 billion bushels in 1879 to 12.7 billion bushels in 2007. Concurrently, the footprint of production changed substantially. Failure to take proper account of movements means that productivity assessments likely misattribute sources of growth and climate change studies likely overestimate impacts. Our new spatial output indexes show that 16 to 21 percent of the increase in U.S. corn output over the 128 years beginning in 1879 was attributable to spatial movement in production. This long-run perspective provides historical precedent for how much agriculture might adjust to future changes in climate and technology.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 219 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This work would not have been possible without the help of many, including Connie Chan-Kang, Michelle Hallaway, and Toby Pardey. Two anonymous reviewers, Terrance Hurley, Robert King, Alan Olmstead, and, especially, Marcel K. Richter provided many insights. The Editor of this Journal, Paul W. Rhode, contributed substantially to the work reported here. This article was prepared with support from the University of Minnesota's MNDrive Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation by way of the HarvestChoice project.

References

REFERENCES

Alston, Julian M., Anderson, Matthew A., James, Jennifer S., et al. Persistence Pays: U.S. Agricultural Productivity Growth and the Benefits from Public R&D Spending. New York: Springer, 2010.Google Scholar
Anderson, Jock A., and Hazell, Peter B.. Variability in Grain Yields. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Ashenfelter, Orley, and Storchmann, Karl. Using Hedonic Models of Solar Radiation and Weather to Assess the Economic Effect of Climate Change: The Case of Mosel Valley Vinyards. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 92, no. 2 (2010): 333–49.Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy,.On the Use of Geographic Information Systems in Economic History: The American Transportation Revolution Revisited. The Journal of Economic History, 72, no. 2 (2013): 313–38.Google Scholar
Beddow, Jason M., Pardey, Philip G., and Hurley, Terrence M.. Reassesing the Effects of Weather on Agricultural Productivity. Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association, Minneapolis: July 27–29, 2014. http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/handle/172415.Google Scholar
Beddow, Jason M., and Pardey, Philip G.. Weather in Statistical Models of Agricultural Productivity. International Science and Technology Practice and Policy Center, St. Paul: Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, in process, 2015.Google Scholar
Beddow, Jason M., Pardey, Philip G., Koo, Jawoo, et al. The Changing Landscape of Global Agriculture. In Shifting Patterns of Agricultural Production and Productivity Worldwide, edited by Alston, Julian M., Babcock, Bruce A., and Pardey, Philip G., 7–38. Ames, IA: Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, 2010.Google Scholar
Bogue, Allan G. Farming in the Prairie Peninsula. The Journal of Economic History, 23, no. 1 (1963): 3–29.Google Scholar
Boskin, Michael J., Dulberger, Ellen R., Gordon, Robert J., et al. Consumer Prices, the Consumer Price Index, and the Cost of Living. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12, no. 1 (1998): 3–26.Google Scholar
Claassen, Roger, Cattaneo, Andrea, and Johansson, Robert. Cost-Effective Design of Agri-Environmental Payment Programs: U.S. Experience in Theory and Practice. Ecological Economics, 65, no. 4 (2008): 737–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972.Google Scholar
Cunfer, Geoff. On the Great Plains; Agriculture and Environment. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Olivier, Deschênes, and Greenstone, Michael. The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agriculture and Random Fluctuations in Weather. American Economic Review, 97, no. 1 (2012): 354–85.Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert,.Hybrid Corn Revisited. Econometrica, 48, no. 6 (1980): 1451–61.Google Scholar
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). FAOSTAT database. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization, 2014. http://faostat.fao.org (accessed September, 2014).Google Scholar
Eichers, Theodore R., Andrilenas, Paul A., and Anderson, Thelma W.. Farmers' Use of Pesticides in 1976. Agricultural Economics Report No. 418. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service, 1978.Google Scholar
Fisher, Irving,.The Best Form of Index Number. Quarterly Publication of the American Statistical Association, 17, no. 133 (1921): 533–37.Google Scholar
Fuller, Dorian Q., Qin, Ling, Zheng, Yunfei, et al. The Domestication Process and Domestication Rate in Rice: Spikelet Bases from the Lower Yangtze. Science, 323, no. 5921 (2009): 1607–9.Google Scholar
Gardner, Bruce L. American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How it Flourished and What it Cost. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Griliches, Zvi,.Hybrid Corn and the Economics of Innovation. Science, 132, no. 3422 (1960): 275–80.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Myron P., Deane, Glenn D., and Witkowski, Kristine. Finding Frontiers in the U.S. Great Plains from the End of the Civil War to the Eve of the Great Depression. In Navigating Time and Space in Population Studies, edited by Gutmann, Myron P., Deane, Glenn D., Merchant, Emily R., et al., 161–83. New York: Springer, 2011.Google Scholar
Hansen, Zeynep K., and Libecap, Gary D.. Small Farms, Externalities, and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Journal of Political Economy, 112, no. 3 (2004): 665–94.Google Scholar
Hazell, Peter B. Changing Patterns of Variability in World Cereal Production. In Variability in Grain Yields, edited by Anderson, Jock R. and Hazell, Peter B., 13–34. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Hidalgo, Daniel F., Naidu, Suresh, Nichter, Simeon, et al. Economic Determinants of Land Invasions. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 92, no. 3 (2010): 505–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, Hans G. Crop Yield Index Numbers. MS Thesis, University of Minnesota, 1942.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Hans G.. Crop Yield Index Numbers. Journal of Farm Economics 25, no. 3(1943): 583–98.Google Scholar
Horan, Patrick M., and Hargis, Peggy G.. County Longitudinal Template, 1840–1990. ICPSR 6576.v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1995.Google Scholar
Hornbeck, Richard,.Barbed Wire: Property Rights and Agricultural Development. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 125, no. 2 (2010): 767–810.Google Scholar
Hornbeck, Richard, The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short- and Long-Run Adjustments to Enviornmental Catastophe. American Economic Review, 102, no. 4 (2012): 1477–507.Google Scholar
Hornbeck, Richard, and Keskin, Pinar. The Historically Evolving Impact of the Ogallala Aquifer: Agricultural Adaptation to Groundwater and Drought. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 6, no. 1 (2014): 190–219.Google Scholar
Ibach, Donald B., and Adams, J. R.. Fertilizer Use in the United States by Crops and Areas, 1964 Estimates. Statistical Bulletin No. 408. Washington, DC: United States Deptartment. of Agriculture, Economic Research Service and Statistical Reporting Service, 1967.Google Scholar
Ibach, Donald B., Adams, J. R., and Fox, Esther I.. Commercial Fertilizer Used on Crops and Pasture in the United States, 1959 Estimates. Statistical Bulletin No. 348. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service and Agricultural Research Service, 1964.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. Gale, and Gustafson, Robert L.. Grain Yields and the American Food Supply. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Kim, Sukkoo,.Economic Integration and Convergence: U.S. Regions, 1840 – 1987. The Journal of Economic History, 58, no. 3 (1998): 659–83.Google Scholar
Lange, Fabian, Olmstead, Alan L., and Rhode, Paul W.. The Impact of the Boll Weevil, 1892 – 1932. The Journal of Economic History, 69, no. 3 (2009): 685–718.Google Scholar
Lin, Biing-Hwan, Padgitt, Merritt, Bull, Len, et al. Pesticide and Fertilizer Use and Trends in U.S. Agriculture. Agricultural Economic Report No. 717. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 1995.Google Scholar
Lobell, David B., and Asner, Gregory P.. Climate and Management Contributions to Recent Trends in US Agricultural Yields. Science, 299, no. 5609 (2003): 1032.Google Scholar
Maizel, Margaret, White, R. Denis, Root, Ralph, et al. Historical Interrelationships Between Population Settlement and Farmland in the Conterminous United States, 1790 to 1992. In Perspectives on the Land Use History of North America: A Context for Understanding our Changing Environment, edited by Sisk, Thomas, 5–12. Biological Science Report USGS/BRD/BSR-1998-0003. United States Geological Survey, Biological Resoures Division, 1999.Google Scholar
Mehring, Arnon L., Adams, James R., and Jacob, Kenneth D.. Statistics on Fertilizers and Liming Materials in the United States. Statistical Bulletin No. 191. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, 1957.Google Scholar
Robert, Mendelsohn, Nordhaus, William D., and Shaw, Daigee. The Impact of Global Warming on Agriculture: A Ricardian Analysis. American Economic Review, 84, no. 4 (1994): 753–71.Google Scholar
Olmstead, Alan L., and Rhode, Paul W.. The Red Queen and the Hard Reds: Productivity Growth in American Wheat, 1800 – 1940. The Journal of Economic History, 62, no. 4 (2002): 929–66.Google Scholar
Robert, Mendelsohn, Nordhaus, William D., and Shaw, Daigee. Corn: America's Crop. In Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development, edited by Olmstead, Alan L. and Rhode, Paul W., 64–97. New York: Cambridge, 2008.Google Scholar
Robert, Mendelsohn, Nordhaus, William D., and Shaw, Daigee. Responding to Climatic Challenges: Lessons from U.S. Agricultural Development. In The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present, edited by Libecap, Gary D. and Steckel, Richard H., 169–94. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Parker, William N., and Klein, Judith L.V.. Productivity Growth in Grain Production in the United States, 1840–60 and 1900 – 10. In Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States after 1800, edited by Brady, Dorothy S., 523–82. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1966.Google Scholar
Reilly, John, Tubiello, Francesco, McCarl, Bruce, et al. U.S. Agriculture and Climate Change: New Results. Climatic Change 57, no. 1–2 (2003): 43–59.Google Scholar
Richter, Marcel K. Invariance Axioms and Economic Indexes. Econometrica, 34, no. 4 (1966): 739–55.Google Scholar
Schlenker, Wolfram, Michael Hanemann, W., and Fisher, Anthony C.. The Impact of Global Warming on U.S. Agriculture: An Econometric Analysis of Optimal Growing Conditions. The Review of Economics and Statistics 88, no.1 (2006): 113–25.Google Scholar
Schlenker, Wolfram, and Roberts, Michael J.,Nonlinear Temperature Effects Indicate Severe Damages to US Crop Yields Under Climate Change. Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, 106, no. 37 (2009): 15594–98.Google Scholar
Snyder, John P. Map Projections-A Working Manual. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper No. 1395. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1987.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Patrick, Hellerstein, Daniel, Hansen, LeRoy, et al. The Conservation Reserve Program: Economic Implications for Rural America. Agricultural Economic Report No. AER-834. Washington, D.C: USDA-ERS, October 2004.Google Scholar
Sutch, Richard C. The Impacts of the 1936 Corn Belt Drought on American Farmers' Adoption of Hybrid Corn. In The Economics of Climate Change: Adaptations Past and Present, edited by Libecap, Gary D. and Steckel, Richard H., 195–223. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Sylvester, Kenneth M., Brown, Daniel G., Deane, Glenn D., et al. Land Transitions in the American Plains: Multilevel Modeling of Drivers of Grassland Conversion (1956–2006). Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 168 (2013): 7–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tanno, Kein-Ichi, and Wilcox, George. How Fast was Wild Wheat Domesticated. Science, 311, no. 5769 (2006): 1186.Google Scholar
USDA-ERS (Economic Research Service). Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators. Agricultural Handbook No. 705. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1994.Google Scholar
USDA-ERS (Economic Research Service). Fertilizer Use and Price Data Files. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, 2011. http://www.ers.usda.gov (accessed January 2011).Google Scholar
USDA-NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service). Agricultural Chemical Use Database. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, 2011a. http://www.pestmanagement.info (accessed January 2011).Google Scholar
USDA-NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service). QuickStats. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, 2011b. http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov (accessed various dates, 2011).Google Scholar
USDA-NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service). QuickStats. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, 2013. http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov (accessed January 2013).Google Scholar
Waisanen, Pamela J., and B. Bliss., Norman Changes in Population and Agricultural Land in Conterminous United States Counties, 1790 to 1997. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 16, no. 4 (2002): 1137–56.Google Scholar
Westcott, Nancy, and Grady, Kevin. Impacts of the 1954 Summer Heat Wave. Presented at the 18th American Meterological Society Conference on Applied Climatology, Atlanta, January 18–21, 2010.Google Scholar
Working, Elmer J. Crop-Yield Index Numbers. Journal of Farm Economics, 22, no. 4 (1940): 701–13.Google Scholar
Wright, Gavin. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War. New York: Basic Books, 1986.Google Scholar
Wu, Junjie,.Slippage Effects of the Conservation Reserve Program. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 82, no. 4 (2000): 979–92.Google Scholar
You, Liang, and Wood, Stanley. An Entropy Approach to Spatial Disaggregation of Agricultural Production. Agricultural Systems 90, no. 1–3 (2006): 329–47.Google Scholar
You, Liang, Crespo, Susana, Guo, Zhe, et al. Spatial Production Allocation Model (SpAM) 2000 Version 3 Release 2, 2011. http://www.mapspam.info (accessed March 2011).Google Scholar
Young, Arthur A. An Inquiry into the Progressive Value of Money in England as Marked by the Price of Agricultural Products. Piccadilly: Hatchard, 1812.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Beddow and Pardey supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Beddow and Pardey supplementary material(File)
File 297.9 KB
Supplementary material: PDF

Beddow and Pardey supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Beddow and Pardey supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 320 KB