This volume, of 16 chapters by 31 contributors, arises from a May 2010 USDA ERS/Farm Foundation conference, marking the post-Millennium reversal of a century of falls in real agricultural commodity prices due to rising farm productivity, mainly land-saving in nature. Its three main parts cover developed and transition countries, Asia and Latin America, and Africa, with two further ‘global’ chapters. An index is provided, though a somewhat unbalanced one. The book has been ‘written primarily for agricultural economists doing research on productivity’, but does not contain much complex algebra, and its many conclusions go into considerable country (sometimes regional) and commodity detail, in both text and numbers. In Fuglie's final chapter on 1961–2009 FAO data, the ‘main empirical finding is that . . . there does not seem to be a slowdown in sector-wide agricultural productivity growth’. Indeed, there has been some recent productivity acceleration (in Brazil, China, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe), offset by lower rates of input expansion. In Western Europe, the ‘slowdown in output growth is entirely due to withdrawals of resources from agriculture, especially labour, and not to a slowdown in productivity growth’ (p. 122). Developing countries show, as perhaps expected, marked variation. In most countries (with Britain an exception), there is a clear correlation between productivity growth rates and the level of spend on agricultural R&D (and also extension and infrastructure). All in all, a source of optimism, and a solid basis for arguing for long-term research support.