Agriculture plays a crucial role in the life of an economy.

It is the backbone of
our economic system. Agriculture not only provides food and raw material but also
employment opportunities to a very large proportion of population.
According to National Income Committee and C.S.O., in 1960-61, 52 per cent of
national income was contributed by agriculture and allied occupations. In 1976-77, this
sector alone contributed 42.2 per cent while in 1981-82, its contribution was to the tune
of 41.8 per cent.

In 2001-02, it contributed around 32.4 per cent of national income. This was
further reduced to 28 per cent in 1999-2000. Contrary to this, the proportion of
agriculture in U.K. is only 3.1, in USA it is 3 percent, 2.5 per cent in Canada, 6 per cent
in Japan, 7.6 per cent in Australia.

India the main occupation of our working population is agriculture. About 70 per
cent of our population is directly engaged in agriculture. In advanced countries, this
ratio is very small being 5 per cent in U.K., 4 per cent in USA., 16 per cent in Australia,
14 per cent in France, 21 per cent in Japan and 32 per cent in USSR.
In the course of economic development, agriculture employs majority of people.
This means raising the level of the national income and standard of living of the
common man.The rapid rate of growth in agriculture sector gives progressive outlook
and further motivation for development. As a result, it helps to create proper
atmosphere for general economic development of the economy. Thus, economic
development depends on the rate at which agriculture grows.
The economy of Liberia is heavily reliant on its agriculture which accounts for
76.9% of the West-African country’s GDP, the highest in the world. The agricultural
sector is the largest employer in the country with the sector accounting for 68% of the
national labor force. The small country has been plagued by years of civil war which has
had a devastating effect on its economy and its agricultural sector in particular. Liberia
has located a region with some of the most favorable conditions for agriculture with
most of the country having well-drained, rain forest soils ideal for tree crop cultivation.
The leading cash crop in Liberia is Rubber with the country producing over 35,000 tons
each year. Another important crop in Liberia is palm oil with an annual production of
42,000 tons. Due to Liberia’s reliance on agriculture, the country had an agricultural
trade surplus of $14million in 2001.
Agriculture is important in every country. It is one of the main pillars of any
economy and the ability to sustain a nation's population from your own sources keeps
people busy with work and puts food on their tables without having to beg borrow or
buy from external sources. At the same time, a strong, well balanced agricultural
system could leave surplus for future, emergency use and for export as a means of
filling the national coffers.
The Philippines is still primarily an agricultural country. Most citizens still live in
rural areas and support themselves through agriculture. The country's agriculture sector
is made up of 4 sub-sectors: farming, fisheries, livestock, and forestry (the latter 2
sectors are very small), which together employ 39.8 percent of the labor force and
contribute 20 percent of GDP.
The country's main agricultural crops are rice, corn, coconut, sugarcane,
bananas, pineapple, coffee, mangoes, tobacco, and abaca (a banana-like plant).
Secondary crops include peanut, cassava, camote (a type of rootcrop), garlic, onion,
cabbage, eggplant, calamansi (a variety of lemon), rubber, and cotton. The year 1998
was a bad year for agriculture because of adverse weather conditions. Sector output
shrank by 8.3 percent, but it posted growth the following year. Yet, hog farming and
commercial fishing posted declines in their gross revenues in 1999. The sector is
burdened with low productivity for most of its crops.
The Philippines exports its agricultural products around the world, including the
United States, Japan, Europe, and ASEAN countries (members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations). Major export products are coconut oil and other coconut
products, fruits and vegetables, bananas, and prawns (a type of shrimp). Other exports
include the Cavendish banana, Cayenne pineapple, tuna, seaweed, and carrageenan.
The value of coconut-product exports amounted to US$989 million in 1995 but declined
to US$569 million by 2000. Imported agricultural products include unmilled wheat and
meslin, oilcake and other soybean residues, malt and malt flour, urea, flour, meals and
pellets of fish, soybeans and whey.
One of the most pressing concerns of the agricultural sector is the rampant
conversion of agricultural land into golf courses, residential subdivisions, and industrial
parks or resorts. In 1993 the nation was losing irrigated rice lands at a rate of 2,300
hectares per year. Small land-holders find it more profitable to sell their land to
developers in exchange for cash, especially since they lack capital for seeds, fertilizers,
pesticides, and wages for hiring workers to plant and harvest the crops. Another
concern is farmers' continued reliance on chemical-based fertilizers or pesticides that
have destroyed soil productivity over time. In recent years however, farmers have been
slowly turning to organic fertilizer, or at least to a combination of chemical and organic
inputs.
Environmental damage is another major concern. Coral-reef destruction,
pollution of coastal and marine resources, mangrove forest destruction, and siltation
(the clogging of bodies of water with silt deposits) are significant problems.
The agriculture sector has not received adequate resources for the funding of critical
programs or projects, such as the construction of efficient irrigation systems. According
to the World Bank, the share of irrigated crop land in the Philippines averaged only
about 19.5 percent in the mid-1990s, compared with 37.5 percent for China, 24.8
percent for Thailand, and 30.8 percent for Vietnam. In the late 1990s, the government
attempted to modernize the agriculture sector with the Medium Term Agricultural
Development Plan and the Agricultural Fisheries Modernization Act.
The fisheries sector is divided into 3 sub-sectors: commercial, municipal, and
aquaculture (cultivation of the natural produce of bodies of water). In 1995, the
Philippines contributed 2.2 million tons, or 2 percent of total world catch, ranking it
twelfth among the top 80 fish-producing countries. In the same year, the country also
earned the distinction of being the fourth biggest producer of seaweed and ninth
biggest producer of world aquaculture products.
In 1999 the fisheries sector contributed P80.4 billion at current prices, or 16
percent of gross value added in agriculture. Total production in 1999 reached 2.7
million tons. Aquaculture contributed the most, with 949,000 tons, followed closely by
commercial fishing with 948,000 tons, and municipal fisheries with 910,000 tons.
Domestic demand for fish is substantial, with average yearly fish consumption at 36kg
per person compared to a 12kg figure for consumption of meat and other food
products.
The Philippines has a population of one hundred million yet it keeps growing that
can cause of poverty. One of the causes of poverty is we fully fail to develop the
agriculture sector as a fact that previous administrations tried not to acknowledge and
failed to focus and improve on. Thus, agriculture is more important than other
industries in the Philippines in order to keep everyone fed.
Philippines is an agricultural country. We must focus on how agriculture can
improve the economic integration in the Philippines but administrations are more
focusing in the industrial production. When the focus is shifted towards development of
agriculture, it can reduce poverty in the Philippines. Since it fulfils the basic necessities
of the people, all nations across the globe make special provision to improve the
productivity. Even the ancient civilization has given it due importance. The agriculture
sector not only provides food but also a means of employment to millions. It contributes
to resolving sociopolitical issues and building a civilized society. Countries where the
real capital income is less, more emphasis is given on developing the agricultural sector
and its related industries since it can become the driving force to boost the economy.
Whether under developing or developed, agriculture is still the basic occupation of the
world
 In Indonesia, poverty remains a major social issue, by any measure. Because
most poverty is still located in rural areas, many agricultural policies embrace the
rhetoric of poverty alleviation as one of their objectives. In the first two decades of the
Suharto period, to the mid-1980s, agricultural policies that supported rice production
contributed to pro-poor economic growth and reduced rural poverty.
But over the past two decades, the contribution of these policies to economic
growth has been reduced; government priorities shifted away from productivity-
enhancing policies and flowed to rice price protection policies whose costs were
growing. In addition, the leverage of agricultural price policies on rural poverty has
been reduced. Raising the price of rice no longer reduces poverty because the poorest
Indonesians are net rice consumers, wage rates now appear to be influenced most
heavily by the non-farm labor market, and the benefits of price policies have been
strongly tilted toward farmland owners. There have been efforts to soften the impact of
higher rice and cooking oil prices for the poorest consumers through targeted consumer
subsidies (“rice for the poor” targeted 19 million poor households in 2008), and
expenditures on these programs increased in response to the 2008 price increases.
Overall, rural poverty has been reduced since 1999 but this has been due to strong
nonfarm economic growth and a dynamic rural labour market that features substantial
off-farm employment and rural-urban migration.
According to the , the Indonesian agricultural sector remains large, comprising
14% of the country’s aggregate Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2007. It is
internationally significant in its production and export of rice, palm oil, coffee, rubber,
cocoa, and spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves). Half the population is still defined
as rural, although this has been declining steadily over the past 50 years as nonfarm
incomes have come to dominate agricultural income, even in rural areas. These are
common features of an agricultural sector in a growing economy and are generally
viewed overall as healthy developments. Indonesia has succeeded in reducing rural
poverty significantly over the last 40 years. National poverty, both urban and rural,
measured at the national poverty line, fell in 2008 to 15% despite the rapid rise in food
prices at that time (World Bank, 2008a). However, this success has as much to do with
factors outside the agricultural sector as within it.
Value-added in the agricultural sector has grown much slower than in the
nonfarm economy. From 1990 to 2005, agricultural GDP grew at only 2.3% per year
(WDR, 2008), less than half the 4.8% growth in aggregate GDP over this period.
Additionally, it has been one of the slower growth agricultural sectors throughout
developing country Asia. Of 13 countries, Indonesia ranks 10th over this period. Only
the agricultural sectors in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Malaysia have grown more slowly.
This situation is not new. In the decade of the 1980s the agricultural sector grew at
only 60% of the domestic economy, and within developing country Asia only three
countries grew more slowly in agricultural GDP. Slow productivity growth is a sector-
wide issue, although it is cited most often in the import-competing sectors of
Indonesian agriculture, notably in rice and sugar.
Apart from that, the Neanderthal population was dependent on the barter
system for the exchange of commodities between two communities. With the discovery
of agriculture, the hunter-gatherer community found a source for food, settling down at
one place, and reduce hunting. The agricultural revolution changed the way the farming
sector would impact the overall economy of a country. The agricultural development
assisted greatly for industrialization in countries like U.S. and Japan as evident from the
significant progress made by them.
It became clear that instead of putting limitations on a particular sector, the
industrial and agricultural industries must co-exist for contributing to the development
of the nation. The agricultural industry in the Philippines plays a big role in driving an
economy being a major source of raw materials. It not increases the employment ratio,
but also strengthens the purchasing power of the people. This sector can also help
individuals for playing an instrumental role in country's foreign exports, and providing
job opportunities for all types of skills.