Agribusiness as an Engine of Growth in Developing Countries

Tyler Holt and Shirley Pryor

No 330496, Miscellaneous Publications from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service

Abstract: Excerpts from the report Introduction: The role of agriculture in the development process is often under-emphasized. Simple, quantitative measures make it seem as if agriculture loses importance as economies grow, so most people conclude that the role of agriculture diminishes as development progresses. In most countries, however, the typical pattern is for agriculture to continue to grow in size and modernize along with the entire economy, even as it declines as a share of total GNP. More importantly, as the entire economy develops, agriculture and related industries become more complex and increasingly integrated with the other sectors in the economy. In fact, a significant portion of the growth which occurs in other sectors of the economy can be attributed to concurrent development and modernization in agriculture. In this study we have measured the size of the agriculture sector and the agribusiness sector in ten emerging markets plus the United States, using data from the Global Trade, Assistance, and Protection (GTAP) project at Purdue University. The GTAP data provide detailed, input-output tables for 37 sectors of the economy in 1992. It allows us to make comparisons between countries at different levels of development, focusing on both the size and composition of agribusiness.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; International Development; International Relations/Trade; Labor and Human Capital; Land Economics/Use; Research Methods/Statistical Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 1999-06
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uersmp:330496

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.330496

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