Statistics on agricultural machinery use

[Keith Fuglie]

I work as an economic research for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and am doing a study on long-run changes in global agricultural productivity. The primary data source for agricultural outputs and inputs for different countries of the world is FAOSTAT. Those of you who are familiar with this dataset will know it limitations. One important limitation is its coverage of agricultural machinery use. FAOSTAT appears to have fairly complete historical estimates of 4-wheel and crawler tractors in use on farms, but it discontinued its series on use of 2-wheel tractors around 1970. Recently they have begun to record some data on two-wheel tractors, but coverage is very spotty. Is anyone aware of other data sources that contain information on historical farm machinery use for individual countries? I am particularly interested in the diffusion of power tillers in Asia, which seems to have accelerated in recent years with the availabilty of lower cost machines from China. Better data could help raise awareness among policy makers of the important role that mechanization icontinues to play in improving agricultural productivity.
Keith Fuglie

[Graham Edwards]

Since i did not submit a photo[age and looks prohibitive]i was appalled to see the computer select a far too heavy ,for most work tasks,Farm tractor as my picture.Now if you could find a TRANTOR[TRANsport and low-draught,fully-suspended tracTOR.....A TRANTOR.I would be content.[if you cant find one as it only has 400 customers in 15 countries and is revolutionary to dumbheads] please invite pauline[[e-mail]] to provide something relevant but please NOT with A PLOW.Graham

[Graham Edwards]

Hi Keith, from Uk.I use the Joseph-lucas[was a big UK-owned FIRM] which records the statistics of farm Tractor-usage in the worlds main tractor-using countries.John MAY wrote it as a prediction for 1970-2010[published in1979 ,August].It is clearly a document of significant value since its statistics are well-expressed ,even if ACTUAL changes do not fit that which was expected/predicted.john may[whom i do not know]refers to FAO,SMMT.[UK] and i would not enter a country to study its tractor-usage without reading what is in "world tractor market 1970-2010" firstly.Graham