Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
110
105
100
95
90
85
All agriculture
Cereals
Crops
Food
80
75
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Year
FIGURE 4.1
Gross per capita agricultural production indices from the UN FAO's statistical data-
base, 1960-2010.
Because agriculture produces food, an essential good that all households must have, his-
torically agriculture has employed a large proportion of the population. As the global economy
has grown along with the value of goods and services produced that are not in the agriculture
sector, the proportion of the overall economy in agriculture has plummeted for developed
countries. For example, in the European Union (EU), the proportion of the GDP con-
tributed by agriculture is just under 3 percent. Although this number is very small, agriculture
is a principal source of income for around 20 percent of its rural population (Moussis, 2011).
Agriculture in the EU accounts for 15 million jobs (8.3 percent of total employment) and a
significant proportion of exported goods, since the EU is the world's largest producer of food
and beverages. Thus even in developed countries, agriculture and the food sector affects a
large proportion of the population.
Figure 4.2
shows the percent of GDP that agriculture provides for most countries in the
world. In Africa, agriculture provides around 70 percent of employment and accounts for on
average 30 percent of the region's GDP (World Bank, 2010). Although this percentage varies
across nations, agriculture is a very important part of the economy in many of the world's
nations. India, for example, has nearly 70 percent of its population working in the agriculture
sector.
Structural changes that shift the proportion of the total economic production from the
agriculture to the manufacturing or to services sector are usually very beneficial overall, as
long as the absolute productivity of agriculture sector does not decline. For the purposes of
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