Agricultural production is the process of growing crops, raising livestock, and managing forests to generate food, animal feed, fuel, and fiber. It covers everything from a small family farm growing vegetables to a massive operation producing millions of tonnes of grain. Globally, about 26 percent of all workers are employed in agriculture, and the sector’s output is measured in billions of tonnes across dozens of commodity categories.
What Agricultural Production Includes
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations breaks agricultural production into three core subcategories: crop production, livestock production, and forestry. Each operates as part of a single agricultural sector but involves distinct practices, inputs, and outputs.
Crop production covers both temporary crops like maize and wheat, which are planted and harvested within a single season, and permanent crops like fruit trees and vineyards that yield harvests over many years. Livestock production includes all animals kept on a holding, whether for meat, milk, eggs, wool, or other by-products. Forestry encompasses the management and harvesting of trees for timber, paper pulp, and other wood-based materials. The basic economic unit in all three cases is the “holding,” a piece of land or operation under single management that includes all the animals and acreage used for production, regardless of size or legal ownership structure.
What comes out of these systems falls into four broad categories, sometimes called the “four Fs”: food, feed, fuel, and fiber. Food is the most obvious output. Feed refers to crops grown specifically for animal consumption, like soybeans and alfalfa. Fuel includes biofuel feedstocks such as corn-based ethanol and sugarcane. Fiber covers materials like cotton and flax used in textiles. Some crops serve as industrial raw materials too, feeding into products like rubber, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.
What Goes Into Production
Agricultural production depends on a combination of natural resources, labor, capital, and manufactured inputs. Land and water are the foundation. On top of those, crop producers use seeds, organic and inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and in some cases modern techniques like hydroponics or greenhouse cultivation. Livestock operations rely on supplementary feedstuffs, mineral salts, vaccines, anti-parasitical treatments, and artificial insemination. Forestry inputs include reforestation efforts, pest control, and selective thinning of trees.
The way economists measure how well all these inputs translate into output is called total factor productivity, or TFP. It’s a simple ratio: total output divided by total inputs. If a country’s agricultural output grows faster than the resources being poured in, productivity is improving. That distinction matters because a country can increase food production either by using more land and fertilizer or by getting more from what it already has. TFP captures the latter, making it one of the most telling indicators of how efficiently a farming system operates.
Global Output by the Numbers
The scale of modern agricultural production is enormous. Global cereal production, which includes wheat, rice, and corn, reached 3.1 billion tonnes in 2024, a 27 percent increase over 2010 levels driven largely by yield improvements rather than new farmland. The FAO forecasts 2025 cereal output at roughly 3 billion tonnes, potentially a record. Oil crops like soybeans and rapeseed saw the fastest growth of any category, with production climbing 50 percent between 2010 and 2024 to 1.2 billion tonnes. Sugar crops hit 2.2 billion tonnes in 2024, up 17 percent from a decade earlier.
On the animal side, world meat production reached 374 million tonnes in 2024. Global milk production came in at 985 million tonnes, with cattle milk accounting for 81 percent of the total. Egg production crossed 100 million tonnes, nearly all of it from hens. These numbers reflect both population growth and rising incomes in developing countries, where demand for animal protein continues to climb.
Intensive vs. Extensive Systems
Not all agricultural production looks the same. The two broadest categories of farming systems are intensive and extensive, and they represent fundamentally different trade-offs.
Intensive systems concentrate production on less land by using nutrient-rich feeds, controlled environments, and high levels of inputs like fertilizer and irrigation. Animals in intensive operations reach maturity faster, producing more meat, milk, or eggs per unit of land and per unit of greenhouse gas emitted. The catch is that intensive systems rely heavily on arable land, the same land that could be growing food directly for people. Feed crops like soy and corn occupy vast acreages to support confined animal operations.
Extensive systems spread production over larger areas with fewer inputs per acre. Cattle grazing on open rangeland is a classic example. Much of this land is unsuitable for growing crops, which means extensive livestock production can convert otherwise unproductive terrain into food. However, extensive grazing has historically been a major driver of deforestation, particularly in the Amazon. The picture today is more complicated: land initially cleared for pasture is increasingly converted to cropland, and growing demand for soy to feed pigs and poultry in Asia has become a significant contributor to land use change in its own right.
Environmental Footprint
Agricultural production is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions globally. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the main contributors within agriculture are livestock (particularly cattle, which produce methane during digestion), agricultural soils (which release nitrous oxide when fertilized), and rice cultivation (flooded paddies generate methane as organic matter decomposes underwater). These emissions make the sector a central focus of climate policy alongside energy and transportation.
The environmental cost goes beyond emissions. Fertilizer and pesticide runoff degrades waterways. Irrigation draws down aquifers and rivers. Expanding farmland displaces forests and natural habitats. These pressures are pushing producers and policymakers toward practices like regenerative agriculture, which emphasizes soil health, water management, and reduced chemical inputs to maintain productivity while limiting environmental damage.
How Technology Is Changing Production
Precision agriculture is reshaping how producers manage their operations. The core idea is using data, sensors, GPS guidance, and automation to apply inputs like water, fertilizer, and herbicide exactly where and when they’re needed rather than blanket-treating entire fields. The U.S. Government Accountability Office identifies several concrete benefits: farmers can increase yields without increasing inputs, or achieve the same yields with fewer inputs, either way boosting profits. Reduced chemical application means less runoff into soil and waterways. In-ground sensors provide detailed, real-time information on soil moisture and nutrient levels, allowing producers to optimize decisions field by field or even row by row.
Water scarcity is one area where precision tools are especially valuable. Drip irrigation systems guided by soil moisture data can cut water use dramatically compared to traditional flood irrigation. As freshwater resources come under increasing pressure from population growth and climate shifts, this kind of efficiency gain becomes less of a luxury and more of a necessity for maintaining production levels.