Where the workers are, and where the output is counted
For each country there are two figures: agriculture’s share of everyone in work, and agriculture’s share of the value added the economy records. Both are World Bank Open Data series for 2024. Nothing else is added.
At the top of the table the two barely meet. Zambia records 55.3% of its workers in agriculture and 2.8% of its output, and Equatorial Guinea 55.1% against 2.7%. Laos runs 68.9% against 16.8%, Burundi 85.4% against 35.1%, Madagascar 69.5% against 21.9%. Moldova, a European country, records 50.8% of its workers against 7.3% of its output.
Across the whole dataset, agriculture employs the majority of all workers in 21 of the 167 countries reporting both figures for 2024, and in 11 of those it produces under a quarter of the output. The gap narrows as the table descends: India 42.4% against 17.6%, Nigeria 34.1% against 25.9%, Brazil 7.7% against 5.8%. At the foot of the table Algeria reverses it, 9.7% of workers against 14.0% of output.
| Country | Workers | Output | Gap, points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zambia | 55.3% | 2.8% | +52.5 |
| Equatorial Guinea | 55.1% | 2.7% | +52.4 |
| Laos | 68.9% | 16.8% | +52.1 |
| Burundi | 85.4% | 35.1% | +50.3 |
| Madagascar | 69.5% | 21.9% | +47.6 |
| Moldova | 50.8% | 7.3% | +43.6 |
| Bangladesh | 44.7% | 11.2% | +33.6 |
| India | 42.4% | 17.6% | +24.8 |
| Nigeria | 34.1% | 25.9% | +8.2 |
| Brazil | 7.7% | 5.8% | +2.0 |
| Japan | 2.9% | 1.0% | +1.9 |
| Algeria | 9.7% | 14.0% | -4.3 |
Why the gap opens
The reading to avoid is that a wide gap measures how little farm workers produce. It cannot, because the two columns are shares of two different totals and come from two different statistical systems. The workers column is a modelled labour estimate; the output column is national accounts. Neither is a share of the other, and no arithmetic connects them.
What moves the gap most is what else sits in the denominator. Zambia’s output is dominated by copper and Equatorial Guinea’s by oil, and both are counted in the same total as agriculture. A very large extractive sector therefore compresses every other sector’s share of output while leaving the number of people working the land untouched. That is the whole distance between 55.3% and 2.8%.
The second thing that moves it is price. Value added is measured at market prices, so a sector whose prices are low records a small share even when its volume is large, and a bad price year can widen a country’s gap without a single person changing job.
- It is output minus the cost of the goods and services used up in producing it, so a sector that buys little counts for less than its turnover suggests.
- It is measured at market prices, so a fall in farm prices lowers value added without changing a single hour worked.
- It is a share of the whole economy, so it falls whenever another sector grows, even if farm output is unchanged.
The third line is why the two widest gaps here belong to Zambia and Equatorial Guinea. Copper and oil are counted in the same denominator as everything else, so they compress agriculture’s share of output while leaving its share of workers exactly where it was. A country can hold half its workforce on the land and record almost nothing for it, not because the land produced nothing, but because something else in the accounts is very large.
Value added is not the value of the work. It is a national-accounts quantity, and three things about how it is built decide how wide this gap can open.
What the gap does not say
It is not a ranking of rich against poor, and Japan is in the table to make that impossible to miss. Japanese agriculture holds 2.9% of the workforce and 1.0% of the output, three times as much of the one as of the other. Nigeria’s holds 34.1% and 25.9%, a ratio of 1.3. By the shape of the relationship Japan is the more lopsided of the two, and by the scale of it the two countries are not remotely comparable. That is why this piece leads with the gap in points and prints the levels beside it.
It is not output per worker either. Nothing here divides output by people, and a figure that did would need a different series, a common currency and a view on hours. A reader who wants to know what an hour of farm work produces has not been told it here.
And it is not a statement that agriculture matters less than its share of output. Value added is an accounting quantity, not a measure of worth: a country that feeds itself records that as a modest percentage, and the percentage is not the point of the harvest.
What the data establishes
- In 2024 agriculture employed 55.3% of Zambia’s workers and produced 2.8% of its output, a gap of 52.5 percentage points, the widest of the twelve here.
- Burundi records the highest employment share of the twelve at 85.4%, against 35.1% of output.
- Agriculture employs the majority of all workers in 21 of the 167 countries reporting both figures for 2024; in 11 of those it produces less than a quarter of the output.
- The gap is not a development ranking. Japan’s agriculture holds 2.9% of its workers and 1.0% of its output, three times as much of the one as of the other, while Nigeria’s holds 34.1% and 25.9%, a ratio of 1.3.
What it does not
- That agricultural workers produce little. The two columns are shares of two different totals, and a large mining or oil sector compresses every other sector’s share of output without touching its share of workers.
- Output per worker. Nothing here divides output by people, in any country, and no productivity figure can be read off this table.
- That agriculture matters less than its share of output. Value added is an accounting quantity measured at market prices, not a measure of what the work is worth.
- Any cause. Twelve countries show a relationship in one year; nothing here says which way any influence runs, or what would happen if it changed.
- Anything about the fifteen countries that report employment but no value added for 2024, or about 2025 and 2026. The latest year carrying both figures is 2024.
Method
- Two series, two statistical systems, one year. The workers column is World Bank Open Data SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS, employment in agriculture as a share of total employment, a modelled ILO estimate. The output column is NV.AGR.TOTL.ZS, agriculture, forestry and fishing value added as a share of GDP, from national accounts. Reference year 2024, read on 7 September 2026, dataset last updated 2026-07-13 by the source’s own stamp. They are not two parts of one calculation: each is a share of its own total.
- THE COUNT IS QUALIFIED, and the qualifier carries weight. 167 countries report both figures for 2024. Fifteen report employment but no value added, and two of those would join the majority group if they reported output: Eritrea at 56.0% of workers and North Korea at 54.3%. The United States, Canada and New Zealand are also absent from the 2024 value-added series, so nothing here is a claim about every country on earth.
- Agriculture is the statistical sector, not farming alone: agriculture, forestry and fishing, ISIC section A. Subsistence production is included, is estimated rather than observed, and is estimated differently from one national statistical office to the next.
- Gaps are computed from the unrounded source values and then displayed rounded. Recomputing a gap from the rounded percentages printed in the table can differ in the last digit, which is a property of rounding rather than a discrepancy.
- The twelve countries span the range of the gap, from the widest to the one country here where it reverses, and six regions. Every country carrying both figures for 2024 was eligible.
Primary sources
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