There is a long history in economic development with regard to the roles of various sectors in development and the choice of strategic sectors for development. This paper is principally concerned with reviewing recent empirical studies on the contribution of agriculture to national growth and to poverty reduction. The outcomes of interest are economy wide, although we are examining the agriculture sector’s performance in relation to the rest of the economy. There have been numerous country case studies, which are useful at bringing light to this question, but we will mainly concern ourselves with the evidence from cross-country comparisons. Before we take up the specific question of the potential contributions of agriculture as a sector, section 2 presents an overview of the general question of overall growth’s influence in reducing poverty. We consider that agriculture’s principal role in poverty reduction is through its long term contribution to national development; although over time the sector’s gross domestic product (GDP) size and its importance in income generation relative to the rest of the economy will decline. The third section turns to accounting for the linkages that agriculture might have with the rest of the economy: How integrated is farming with other sectors? The answer gives some idea of the potential for agriculture to have positive spillovers on other sectors’ growth. Without such linkages it is doubtful that agriculture could contribute to pro-poor growth beyond simply the expansion of its own GDP. The fourth and fifth sections examine recent econometric evidence of the contribution of agriculture to national growth and poverty reduction. Cross-country studies show that, on average, for developing countries agriculture tends to have an impact on both national growth and poverty reduction that is greater than its simple share in national GDP.

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