Higher national spending aligns strongly with greater agricultural output across countries.
Comparing Gross national expenditure (current LCU) with Value Added (Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing) — Value Standard Local Currency, 2015 prices across 153 countries, 2024–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.95
- Holding size constant
- +0.91
- Countries compared
- 153
- Period
- 2024–2025
What might link these
This may reflect economic development, where richer nations spend more while also investing in agriculture. However, reverse causation is possible—agricultural output could drive spending—or both could be driven by a third factor like institutional quality.
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. Correlation alone doesn’t prove directionality or rule out unmeasured confounders like climate or policy.
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.