2024 Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report

New data from the 2024 GAP Report offers valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with the widespread adoption of productivity-enhancing tools, and how "bundling" these tools with other interventions will accelerate sustainable agricultural productivity growth.

What: Washington D.C. and Online – October 3, 2024 – The Global Agricultural Productivity Initiative at Virginia Tech (GAP Initiative) is proud to announce the launch of the 2024 Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report. The launch event, to be held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. and online, will unite key stakeholders from around the world- policymakers, farmers, and the private sector.  The event will feature two panel discussions: a multisectoral panel exploring successful bundling approaches, and an all-farmer panel to provide insights from the field.

We will unpack the report's findings and build on the foundations laid by the 2023 GAP Report by considering how access and adoption of proven sustainable productivity-enhancing tools can be accelerated by creating high impact bundles. We will also examine timely means of scaling these bundles by tailoring based on context and need.

Agricultural productivity growth has been driven by research, development, and dissemination of production-enhancing technologies such as improved crop and animal genetics or precision technologies, to name only a few. Robust evidence demonstrates that production-enhancing technologies should be combined or “bundled” with evidence-based policies, socio-economic interventions, and dissemination pipelines for greatest impact.

The GAP Index previously projected that global total factor productivity (TFP) growth should average 1.91 percent annually to achieve sustainable production of agricultural needs by 2050. However, new evidence finds the target TFP growth rate needs to be revised upward once again to compensate for persistently sluggish progress. Bridging the ‘valley of death’ — the gap between developing innovative solutions and getting them to producers through commercialization or public delivery—must be a top priority in the coming decade. This raises the need to rethink the ways that we bundle production tools with distribution mechanisms, socio-economic tools, and policy levers to open new pathways to scale access and adoption, especially among smallholder producers.

When: October 3, 2024 from 8–11 a.m.

*doors open at 7:30 a.m.; continental breakfast available

Where: National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and online

Registration is required to attend in-person or online.