Soil yield

In economics, soil yield is the yield of the production factor soil .

General

Every economic production factor generates a profit. In the case of labor it is the labor income , in the case of capital it is the interest income , the productivity of the soil is the result of the interrelation between soil fertility and human labor. In agriculture, land use leads to harvest ( fruit , grape harvest , grain harvest ), in forestry to wood harvest and in mining to the extraction of raw materials . In a broader sense, the land yield also includes the legal fruits , i.e. rental income or rent from renting or leasing the land.

history

Curve according to the law of yield: Change in the application rate by varying the factor . ${\displaystyle Y}$ ${\displaystyle r1}$

The physiocrats were primarily concerned with the agricultural land and the land yield as a result of its use . In 1757, the physiocrat François Quesnay defined the yield of land as “the result of the nature of the land and of people. Without human work, the soil has no value ”. In 1760 he demanded the taxation of the land yield through a flat tax ( French impôt unique ), which must be the only source of the state's tax income. He found that there is an excess of land yield over the cost of tillage . Contemporary Anne Robert Jacques Turgot formulated in 1768: “If you throw seeds on a soil of natural fertility that has not been cultivated, this expenditure would be almost lost. Once the soil is plowed, the yield is already greater and after two or three plowing times not only doubled and tripled, but quadrupled and tenfold. In this way, the yield increases much more than the expenses ... If the production optimum is exceeded by further expenses, the yield will increase, but the less and less and less until the fertility of the soil is exhausted and no further effort is possible, something else to add (production maximum) ”. The soil yield law expressed here (also: law of decreasing soil yield ) has dominated the economic discussion since then with its model of the relationship between factor input ( English input : seeds , fertilizers , agricultural technology ) and yield ( English output : harvest ) and is today also the basis of the limitational production function applied in business administration . His name does not seem particularly happy, however, because it can easily lead to the erroneous view that one is dealing with absolutely decreasing soil yields, while it is only a question of relatively decreasing soil yields.

Adam Smith , in his book The Wealth of Nations (March 1776), criticized the Physiocrats' belief that "the yield of land [...] is the only source of income and wealth in a country". For him, this view consisted only of speculation "by a handful of learned and original thinkers in France". Smith sees in the rent that part of the income that belongs to the landowner , the "price to be paid by the tenant for the use of land". The people's income from the soil is not related to the rent, but to the yield itself.

Thomas Robert Malthus investigated the relationship between population growth and land yield in 1798 and, in his population law, came to the prognosis that the land yield could only grow in arithmetic progression (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.), while the population could grow in geometric progression ( 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 etc.) grow, with the result of hunger and poverty . It was not improvements in production but birth control (for example through abstinence ) that the Pastor Malthus saw as a way of permanently fighting poverty. It was not until John Stuart Mill , in 1848, that this population theory was supported with the law of decreasing land yield. Neomalthusianism , influenced by Mill, promoted birth control contraceptives , which Malthus had rejected. Your predictions are verified today .

In contrast to Smith, David Ricardo interpreted the land yield as differential rent , which is thus eliminated from the price formation process . In 1817 Ricardo defined the rent as that part of the land yield that is paid to the landowner for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the good soil and consists of the difference between wheat price and wages. According to Ricardo, the differential rent is the difference in earnings that results from the use of two equal amounts of labor and capital on the same area of ​​land. For Karl Marx in 1895 the generation of a basic rent is the primary goal of agricultural production. He saw part of the surplus in the basic rent .

Agricultural practice

The agricultural land yield ( English produce of soil, crop yield, agricultural output ) indicates all goods generated within a vegetation period that have arisen from the use of the soil and can be measured in units of value or quantity . It is usually stated as the annual yield in tons or euros per hectare and year (t / (ha * year), € / (ha * year)) and equivalents. The soil yield depends on the type and fertility of the soil , the nature of the terrain and climatic factors , as well as the use of capital (e.g. seeds, fertilizers, agricultural machinery) and labor or processes and production methods ( e.g. tillage ).

statistics

The soil yield is statistically determined by the number of relationships

${\displaystyle {\text{Bodenertrag}}={\frac {\text{Tonnen}}{\text{Hektar}}}\,}$

calculated. It is the soil productivity , which indicates the amount of harvest that can be obtained from a certain area of ​​land. In 1871, only 0.9 tons of rye were harvested per hectare, in 1912 it was 1.57 tons. In 1871 5 tons of potatoes were pulled from the hectare, in 1914 already 13.5 tons were taken from the hectare. In 2016 the harvest yields were 5.56 (rye) and 45.4 (potatoes). In 2017, the global yield per hectare for corn was 5.6 tonnes / hectare, followed by rice (4.5), wheat (3.4) and barley (3.0). The total market fruit in Germany have apples with 30.9 tonnes / hectare, the highest crop productivity, followed by pears (22.4), plums / prunes (12.2), strawberries (open land; 11.5) and Mirabelle / Renekloden (9 , 2).

See also

• Soil ecology , soil culture
• Income from agriculture and forestry
• Livestock unit (LSU), the analogue of livestock for the stocking rate per ha, Serviced: Shock

Individual evidence

1. ^ François Quesnay, Getreide ( French "Grains" ), in: Encyclopédie vol. 7, Nov. 1757, p. 44
2. ↑ Victor Riqueti de Mirabeau / François Quesnay, Théorie de l'impôt , 1760, p. 102 ff.
3. ^ Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Observations sur le Mémoire de M. de Saint-Péravy , Œuvres I, 1768, p. 420
4. ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations , Volume IV, 1776, p. 650
5. ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations , Volume IV, 1776, p. 650
6. ^ Adam Smith, Nature and Causes of People's Wealth , Volume II, 1882, p. 336
7. ^ Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population , 1798, p. 8
8. ^ John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy , Volume III, 1848, p. 7
9. ↑ Gert von Eynern, Dictionary of Political Economy , 1973, p. 463
10. ↑ David Ricardo, On the principles of Political Economy and Taxation , 1817, p. 67
11. ^ Karl Marx, Das Kapital , Volume III, 1895, MEW Volume 25, p. 662
12. ↑ Die Volksschule , Volume 37, Issues 7-18, 1941, p. 188
13. ↑ Statista, the statistics portal, grain yield per hectare of cultivated area of ​​the most important grain types worldwide in the years 1993/94 to 2017/2018 , accessed on February 22, 2018
14. ↑ Federal Statistical Office, BMEL (123), 2015