Reimagining agriculture's role in economic development and growth

An agriculture worker in China generates merely one-fourth of the income generated by a non-agricultural worker. India and Vietnam are close to China while Indonesia shows lower disparity

The literature on the role of agriculture in development concludes that structural transformation of economy is marked by decline in share of agriculture in economy’s output and employment as an economy grows from low income towards middle and higher income. Based on this, policy emphasis for growth and development tilted towards non-agriculture sectors, specially manufacturing.

 

The root of this line of thinking is traced to the work of British Economist Arthur Lewis (1954), who described economic development as a growth process of relocating resources from agriculture, characterised by low productivity and traditional technology, to modern industrial sector with higher productivity.