Employment in Agriculture and Food Trade

Agricultural sectors are increasingly integrated into international markets as global value chains (GVCs) expand. This integration is helping to drive value added growth in the sector, including the returns that flow to labour. This report explores the impact that trade and agro-food GVC participation has on labour returns and thereby employment not only within the agricultural sectors, but across other sectors of the economy. At the global level, trade and agro-food GVCs generated an average of between 20-26% of total agricultural workforce returns between 2004 and 2014, and labour returns were generated from both direct participation in trade and from indirect participation through other downstream sectors. This report finds that the impact on economy-wide labour returns is on average greater for countries specialising in direct exports of primary products as compared to those specialising in indirect agricultural exports. Evidence also shows that agricultural subsidies have a negative impact both on labour returns from primary sector exports and the returns generated indirectly from processing-sector exports.