Yield of Corn, Soybean and Rice in Countries

choi

Brian Spegele, Deal Feeds GMO Fears in China. Wall Street Journal, Mar 27, 2017.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in- ... mo-fears-1490526420

Note:
(a) Online title: In China, Syngenta Deal Feeds Local GMO Fears
(b) There is no need to read the text. Firstly, I am a biologist, and think the fears are unfounded. In any event, the report is locked behind paywall.
(c) What is interesting to me is the figure, whose legend says the yield (2000- ) is based on United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

For yields of China and US on corn and soybean, click the icon at the bottom of this page.
(d) I go to FAOSTAT.
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/

, where the left upper panel has the heading "Database Updates." The second item (out of three) is "Crops (Production)."  There I selected
(a) among "countries": (China, mainland), (China, Taiwan Province of), Japan, and (United States of America)
(b) elements: yield (not area harvested, or production quantity [which is yield times area harvested])
(c) items: "rice, paddy"
(d) Years: 2014 all the way back to 1961

Then Click the button "SHOW DATA."

The resulting table:

year .........China, mainland ............China, Taiwan Province of .........Japan ...........USA
1961 .......20434 ..........................32663 .......................................48794 ..........38227
1971 .......33026 ..........................38744 .......................................52439 ..........52882
1981 .......43280 ..........................45044 .......................................56295 ..........54015
1991 .......56269 .........................53909 ........................................58590 ..........64244
2001 .......61634 .........................51984 ........................................66354 ..........72807
2014 .......68152 .........................63907 ........................................66978 ..........84919

(i) yield unit is hg/ha or hectogram per hectare
(ii) metric prefix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix
(table: hecto)

Thus 1 hg (hectogram) = 0.1 kg (kilogram)
(iii) But the above table does not say anything about efficiency. Presumably, USA produces the largest yield in the cheapest way (due to mechanization), and want to export allover the world (including to Taiwan and Japan).