The importance of agriculture and agri-business to any economy cannot be overemphasized. Any level of analysis of a country’s economic position in comparison to others is based on the aggregate of sectors’ performances. In most economies, especially in so-called developing countries or emerging markets, agriculture features prominently as a major sector evidenced by the percentage of the population engaged in agricultural activities. Essentially, therefore, in most countries, especially less developing countries (LDCs), the economy generally definitively depend on agriculture either partially or significantly. in many nations, agriculture contributes significantly to the gross domestic product (GDP), or the national income.
Agriculture, the art or science of production of crops and livestock, is one of mankind’s oldest vocations. With mankind’s development, the concept of agriculture has also evolved as the number of people on earth has topped the seven billion mark. Agriculture is no longer merely associated with the production of basic food crops; rather, modern day agriculture, in relation to the former, includes bees production, cash crops production, forestry, poultry production, animal husbandry, among others. Agriculture is the backbone and the foundation stone of the economic system of a country because a country that is incapable of feeding its citizens has already failed a core principle of governance.
Kolah Environmental , therefore, would suffer a major oversight were it not to highlight agriculture as a significant component of the building blocks of an economy. Another crucial sub-set of agriculture is agri-business. Wikipedia defines agri-business as “the business of agricultural production. Coined in 1957 by Goldberg and Davis, the term includes agri-chemicals, breeding, crop production (farming and contract farming), distribution, farming machinery, processing, and seed supply, as well as marketing, wholesale, and retail sales”. Generally, in an economy, all of these components have significance.