Beyond Crop Per Drop: Assessing Agricultural Water Productivity and Efficiency in A Maturing Water Economy

The report is based on “Improving Agricultural Water Productivity and Beyond” (P128451), economic and sector work completed by the Water Global Practice in collaboration with the Agriculture Global Practice. The work was co-led by Susanne M. Scheierling and David O. Tréguer under the leadership of Pilar Maisterra. The report benefited from important contributions and advice, in particular from Meredith Giordano of the International Water Management Institute on single-factor productivity measures, Keith Fuglie of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service on total factor productivity indices, Boris Bravo-Ureta of the University of Connecticut and Nicolas E. Quintana Ashwell of the University of Wyoming on frontier methods, and James F. Booker of Siena College on deductive methods. The report’s peer reviewers provided guidance. Internal peer reviewers included Richard Damania, Marianne Fay, Steven N. Schonberger, and Dina Umali-Deininger. Guillaume Gruére of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also provided valuable suggestions and detailed comments on drafts of this report. Useful comments were also contributed by participants of the 2016 Meeting of the International Water Resource Economics Consortium (IWREC) hosted by the World Bank; the 2016 Agricultural Symposium of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City held in Kansas City; the 2017 World Bank Water Week organized in Washington, DC; and the 2017 Water for Food Global Conference at the University of Nebraska. Research assistance was provided by Nicolas E. Quintana Ashwell, and editorial services by Cathy Gagnet. The report benefited from financial support from the Water Partnership Program (WPP), a multidonor trust fund at the World Bank.