The Impact of agriculture on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Agriculture is considered as an important for economic growth through supply of excess labor, supply of food, supply of intermediate input for agro processing industries, opening a market to industries, accumulation of capital to invest on industry and increase foreign exchange. Nevertheless the impact of Agriculture on economic growth in developing countries has been a controversial issue among different scholars for several years. Recent empirical results of some scholar’s shows that agriculture is the mechanism of economic growth and prerequisite for industrialization while some other scholars argue differently. This paper deals the impact of agriculture on economic growth on 21 selected Sub-Saharan African countries with fixed effect model of the panel data set from 2000 to 2013. The result suggests that agriculture enhances the economic growth of Sub-Sahara African countries.