>Do you know if the agricultural production increase is driven by exploiting more land (e.g. taking over land from forest) or by increased productivity of the practice?
That would depend on the country in question, and in some cases it can be both, with more land being used while production per hectare (or acre) increases too. From wht I know of most developed countries, it's a case of steadily less land used, but much more productively than ever.
For example, the United States today produces more food in absolute terms than at any time in its history (an increase of nearly 200% in the last 70 years alone), while land used for agriculture has at pretty much the same time steadily been decreasing since the mid-20th century. Forests are even growing back as a result, with total forest cover having been very gently increasing since 1910 (links below)
Sorry for pushing the logic but this doesn't account for the land, labour and resources required for the input which replaced former, less technical ways. How much is required to produce the seeds, seedlings, chemicals, energy and machines that weren't used before? In a really old approach farms tended to be fairly independant (e.g. producing their own fertilizers and using animal traction, animal who lived on the farm). This used land and labour which was accounted for but seems unaccounted for in more modern practice. In my opinion this underestimate the land and labour cost and creates a biased vision of the actual efficiency of modern agriculture.
That would depend on the country in question, and in some cases it can be both, with more land being used while production per hectare (or acre) increases too. From wht I know of most developed countries, it's a case of steadily less land used, but much more productively than ever.
For example, the United States today produces more food in absolute terms than at any time in its history (an increase of nearly 200% in the last 70 years alone), while land used for agriculture has at pretty much the same time steadily been decreasing since the mid-20th century. Forests are even growing back as a result, with total forest cover having been very gently increasing since 1910 (links below)
https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/legacy_files/med...
https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/blog/look-agricultural-...