Strong link between overall economic activity and agriculture's per capita contribution.
Comparing Gross value added at basic prices (GVA) (current LCU) with Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, value added (current LCU), per capita across 204 countries, 1990–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.79
- Holding size constant
- +0.85
- Countries compared
- 204
- Period
- 1990–2025
What might link these
The strong positive correlation suggests that countries with higher overall economic output tend to have a larger agricultural sector per person. This could be due to many factors, including the importance of agriculture in developing economies or specialized agricultural export markets in developed ones.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The adjusted correlation is high, but it doesn't prove that changes in the overall economy cause changes in agriculture's per capita value, or vice-versa, as other factors may be at play.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.