Agricultural productivity
Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio of agricultural outputs to inputs. While individual products are usually measured by weight, which is known as crop yield, varying products make measuring overall agricultural output difficult. Therefore, agricultural productivity is usually measured as the market value of the final output. This productivity can be compared to many different types of inputs such as labour or land. Such comparisons are called partial measures of productivity.
Grain silos
Rice plantation in Thailand
Cambodians planting rice, 2004
A cooperative dairy factory in Victoria.
Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. The availability of food for people of any class, gender or religion is another element of food security. Similarly, household food security is considered to exist when all the members of a family, at all times, have access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Individuals who are food-secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Food security includes resilience to future disruptions of food supply. Such a disruption could occur due to various risk factors such as droughts and floods, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, and wars. Food insecurity is the opposite of food security: a state where there is only limited or uncertain availability of suitable food.
A woman selling produce at a market in Lilongwe, Malawi
Number of people affected by undernourishment in 2010–12 (by region, in millions)
A Kenyan woman farmer at work in the Mount Kenya region
Goats are an important part of the solution to global food security because they are fairly low-maintenance and easy to raise and farm.