Let's think of farming biologically.

The task is to find out, does farming produce a surplus of calories?more calories in the output than used up in the work input?

The production function for farming is shown below. It indicates the amount of output produced by any given number of farmers working on a given amount of land.

900 1? 'U E 732 ..................................................... . g 675 : The farmers' production function: a i This shows how the number of 5 : farmers working the land t; x i translates into grain harvested. in 500 -------------------------- . ,. g '5' 450 l ' 1:: E At A the average product of labour is 500,000/800 = E \"y" 625 kg of grain per farmer. 9- 5 At B the average product of labour is 732,000/1,600 = g : 458 kg of grain per farmer. in 225 i : .._ l i O l i M ' : 3' Slope = 732,000/1,600 = 458 : 0 I | 0 400 800 1.200 1,600 2,000 2,400 2,800 Number of farmers