ABSTRACT
According to a widely shared belief, in contrast to other sectors such as automobile, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and software, which are all “modern” industries and often served as leading sectors in national development processes, the agro-food industry has been characterized, in the past, as a traditional sector and never played such a role. The roles of the agro-food sector in development were, in short, in providing subsistence foundation and in serving as a “catalyst” to successful catch-up (Sisler and Oyer, 2000: 1).
