Global Agriculture: Value Added, Employment and Crop Production

FAO's Statistical Yearbook is the main annual summary of world food and agriculture statistics. The 2024 edition reports that global agricultural value added rose 89 percent in real terms over two decades, reaching USD 3.8 trillion in 2022 [1]. Agriculture's share of global economic output stayed fairly stable over that period [1].

The 2021 edition had put value added from agriculture, forestry and fishing at USD 3.5 trillion in 2019, up 73 percent in real terms since 2000 [3].

Agriculture employs fewer people as a share of all workers. The share of the global workforce in agriculture fell from 40 percent in 2000 to 26 percent in 2022 [1]. The 2021 Yearbook put agricultural employment at 874 million people in 2020, or 27 percent of the global workforce [3].

The 2024 edition also added new country-level estimates of employment across agrifood systems, which covers more than farming [1].

Global production of primary crops reached 9.6 billion tonnes in 2022, an increase of 56 percent compared with 2000 [1]. Sugar cane, maize, wheat and rice together make up nearly half of global crop production [1].

Production is concentrated in a few countries. China produced 26-27 percent of world potatoes and rice and 17 percent of world wheat, and 60 percent of oil palm fruit came from Indonesia [2]. FAO notes this concentration can have a large impact on prices when harvests in major producing countries change [2].

The global harvested area of the main primary crops reached 1.5 billion hectares in 2024, up 197 million hectares from 2010 [4].

Meat production increased by 55 percent from 2000 to 2022, with chicken accounting for the largest share [1].

Figures come from FAO's Statistical Yearbook 2024 news release [1] and the Yearbook 2024 text [2], the 2021 edition summary on ReliefWeb [3], and FAO's statistics resource page [4]. Value added refers to the broad agricultural sector (agriculture, forestry and fishing) as defined by the UN Statistics Division. It is net output after subtracting intermediate inputs, measured in constant USD [2].

The 2019 and 2022 value added figures and the 2020 and 2022 employment shares come from different Yearbook editions. Back data can be revised between editions, so compare them with care. No FREEE.REPORT calculations are used.