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Comment by xyzzy4 | Hacker News Reader

In India it's half of the workforce. So I don't think your 1% is accurate. Also most jobs are nonessential for human survival, unlike agriculture.

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India keeps its agricultural sector inefficient as a jobs program.

Compare the yields from India to best-in-class producers of the same products [1]. For the top 5 products (excluding Buffalo milk) Indian production is 70% less efficient. (Buffalo milk is excluded because I don't have a source for best-in-class production.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India Largest agricultural products in India by value

In first world nations it is. The US has 3.2 million farmers and a population of 325 million or so. I don't know if your figure is inaccurate, misleading or farmers in India are extremely inefficient.

"Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm output. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and fisheries accounted for 13.7% of the GDP (gross domestic product) in 2013,[2] about 50% of the workforce.[3][4]" - Wikipedia

Wow, the output of a single American farmer must be an order of maginatude higher than an Indian one. Not really something I'd strive for.

50% of the population is in agriculture, not farming. Total agriculture represents about 10% of US jobs, but only 10% of agriculture jobs are farming jobs.

What's funny is, all the farmers I have met were millionaires. I know that isn't strictly true, but many do very well for themselves. Land value has a lot to do with it, I suppose.

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