Agribusiness in Latin America and the Caribbean

Peru is often cited as an agribusiness success: the country has experienced strong growth in non-traditional exports, many from the agribusiness sector. Much of this growth has come from new crops, including grapes, asparagus, avocados, mango, cocoa, bananas, and quinoa. From 2006-2014 traditional agricultural exports (such as coffee, sugar, and wool) grew to US$840m from US$574m. But the non-traditional agricultural exports grew even faster. A detailed World Bank study published in 2017, ‘Gaining Momentum in Peruvian Agriculture: Opportunities to Increase Productivity and Enhance Competitiveness’, gives some insight into this success. It notes that as in many Latin America countries, agriculture’s share of GDP and employment has fallen in recent decades, part of an ongoing structural change as other sectors of the economy expand. However, this should not distract attention from the fact that the sector is still growing at quite healthy rates. From 2000-2015 Peruvian agricultural GDP grew by an average of 3.3% per annum. Agriculture also has important backward and forward links to other parts of the economy: if these are taken into account, agriculture’s share of total GDP is 11.3%, four points higher than the 7.3% reported in the national accounts.