ABSTRACT
Seen from a long historical perspective, agriculture has been a initial major development instrument for humanity. The dominance of Eurasian civilizations over others originated, according to Diamond, in environmental endowments and technological advances supporting differentially high rates of productivity growth in agriculture. The recent accelerated-growth successes in India, China, Vietnam, Brazil, and Chile were importantly derived from the rapid growth of agriculture. Agriculture can be a key source of growth for the rest of the economy at early stages of development, when the agricultural sector still looms large in employment of the labor force and in GDP. The rise of labor productivity in agriculture allows farm producers to deliver a “marketed surplus” to the urban environment where it can feed a labor force engaged in other activities.
