POTENTIAL OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT TO INCREASE RURAL EMPLOYMENT

The paper examined whether increasing agricultural output would lead to an expansion of employment in rural areas in the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The paper found that the agricultural development problems in the Caribbean and SSA are very similar, especially, declining export demand for products, adverse trade policies and the actions of nature, causing damage to agricultural production. The simulations performed showed that in both regions, even a 4% annual increase in agricultural output has the potential for annually increasing agricultural employment by over 6%, even with an annual technical progress of 1.5% in the case of SSA and 2% in the case of the Caribbean. Expanding rural employment through expansion of agricultural output is therefore a definite opportunity in the two regions