Formation et répartition des gains de productivité dans l'agriculture française. Analyse par produit

Abstract

Productivity increases in some French agricultural sectors and their distribution. A lot of studies concern the measurement of the productivity growth of the whole agricultural sector. These analyses are often limited because the evolution of the conditions of production are very different according to the products. This paper aims at analysing the generation and the distribution of productivity increases in some French agricultural sectors (soft wheat, corn , greenhouse vegetables, fruits, cattle, sheep, milk, pig, and poultries ), between 1979 and 1991. First, a simple econometric model is used to build the different products accounts, from the French RICA (FADN). Then, volumes, prices and productivity indexes are calculated for these products and the surplus accounting method is applied to study how the productivity increases are distributed. The results show that the conditions of the generation and distribution of productivity increases are very different according to the sectors. In the cereals sector, the productivity increases are very important : for the wheat, the rate of labour productivity is 6 % per year and the total rate of productivity 3 % per year. This productivity surplus is completely absorbed by the fall in prices, benefitting to customers of the cereal sector. It induces a great contribution in the surplus accounting of the animal sector : for example, the fall of prices of the intermediate consumptions represents, in the milk and pig sectors, half of the whole distributed surplus. In some animal sectors (cattle , for example ). the productivity increases are low but the costs of production fall, following the drop of prices of the intermediate consumptions. One of the interest of the surplus accounting method consists in allowing to study these relations between the different sectors and it may be used to follow the effects of the CAP reform.