ABSTRACT
Many prominent agricultural economists such as Inn a Adelman have recognized the value and important role of agriculture in development. This chapter develops a model to extend the commonly held belief that the agricultural sector could only affect long run growth rates through increased demand for manufactured goods or that the only road to development is through industrialization and manufacturing. The analysis of the model can also be applied to countries that began by exporting high technology goods and are now branching out into highly perishable agricultural exports, like Taiwan and Malaysia. The model reflects the value of export promotion and externalities in human capital to long run growth rates of developing countries. The chapter focuses on developing countries whose comparative advantage lies in the labor intensive agricultural sector. It proposes some ideas which differ from ADLI in that they emphasize the important and dynamic role of agricultural exports for economic growth.
