ABSTRACT
The role of agriculture The role of agriculture in economic development has been the subject of disagreement from the point of view both of analysis and of policy. Those concerned with measures to promote economic development in today's low-income countries have often tended to belittle the contribution which the agricultural sector can make. Whether this attitude is justified or not, it is not difficult to see reasons for its appeal. The world which such policy-makers see is one in which most rich nations are highly industrialized and nearly all poor ones overwhelmingly agricultural. The temptation to draw an obvious, if possibly invalid, conclusion is strengthened by the knowledge that in countries with substantial nonagricultural sections income per head in the latter has usually been appreciably higher than in the agricultural sector.1 Moreover, it is believed - on quite inadequate grounds, historically speaking, as we have already hinted and shall demonstrate further - that the rate of growth of productivity has been appreciably higher in industry than in agriculture; and so far as tropical countries are concerned - and most poor countries lie between Cancer and Capricorn - the stock of technology available for 'free borrowing' from advanced countries is greater in manufacturing than in agriculture if only because the advanced countries are located in the temperate zone, and have oriented their agricultural research to crops and types of livestock which are generally unsuited
The opposite view, however, also numbers many adherents, especially in advanced countries. It is argued that precisely because the agricultural sector generates such a large fraction of national income productivity gains in this sector must, as a matter of simple arithmetic, be the chief determinant of the rate of overall growth in poor countries. And it is easy to show that where the large majority of the work force is engaged in agriculture, the rapid rate of population increase characteristic of today's low income countries implies that even given an extremely high rate of growth in the manufacturing sector, agriculture's proportionate role will reduce only slowly, and the absolute numbers working on the land will continue to increase for many decades.2 The dominant agricultural sector, moreover, is potentially the greatest market for industrial products, especially in view of the generally poor outlook for the export of such products by developing countries; and if industrial growth is not to be thwarted by an insufficiency of demand, a rise in productivity capable of generating an appropriate increase in agriculture's purchasing power must be achieved. Finally, poor countries are typically short of capital, of entrepreneurial talent and of skilled workers. These shortages limit the scope for industrial growth and compel greater emphasis on sources of growth which make smaller demands on these scarce resources.
