Agriculture Fast Facts

• Agriculture represents about 30% of GDP in Africa and South Asia; about 20% in East Asia & Pacific; and about 10% in Central Asia, Latin America & Caribbean.
• Agriculture's share of GDP, for methodological reasons, is probably understated in most developing countries because of rural/urban difference of the purchasing power of the national currency.
• The 1980-1993 agricultural growth rate was about 4% in Middle East & North Africa, and East Asia & Pacific; about 3% in South Asia, about 2% in Latin America & Caribbean and Africa; and negative in Central Asia.
• Agricultural products account for 30% of exports in Africa, Latin America & Caribbean; about 20% in South Asia and East Asia & Pacific; and 5% in Middle East & North Africa. (Agriculture's share in exports is markedly higher in several regions if oil exports are excluded)
• Rural people make up 70% of total population in South Asia, Africa, and East Asia & Pacific; about 50% in Middle East & North Africa; and about 30% in Central Asia, Latin America & Caribbean.
• Of the world's 1.3 billion people living in poverty, some 70% are rural people.
• Of the 800-900 million undernourished people in the world, the majority is again living in rural areas.
• Rural growth is widely shared, with private and competitive agriculture and agribusiness as the main engine of growth. Investments in agriculture therefore achieve a strong multiplier effect which stimulates rural and urban economies alike. The historical take-off of newly industrialized economies on high growth trajectories was usually preceded by a phase of vigorous agricultural growth.
• Family farms and non-farm enterprises offer ample remunerative employment to men and women. Only the rural economy based on agriculture has the capacity to absorb rapidly growing age groups of job entrants.
• Agriculture is the prime warden of the environment. Unless racked by poverty and hunger, farmers manage soils, water, forests, grassland, and fisheries in a sustainable manner. Diminishing rural poverty means improving conservation of natural resources.

(World Bank: From Vision to Action in the Rural Sector, 1996, and other sources)