Business Economic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business Economic - Essay Example In our ensuing discussions, we will look at three main industries of Germany and compare them with respect to various economic parameters. As of 2009 estimates, agriculture sector forms only 0.8% of the GDP (cia.gov). The level of employment in this sector as of 2005 was only 2.4% of the total labor force (cia.gov). Hence we can see that agriculture does not form a very substantial part of the country’s economy in terms of contribution to the GDP or the employment. Graph 1 above shows the value added data in agriculture since 1980. We can easily see that this is on a declining trend over the years. The graph 2 showing the real value added in agriculture shows a lot of fluctuation with negative growth during many years. This means that agriculture is giving way to other industrial segments in terms of contribution to the GDP. However, agricultural land accounts for half of the nation. The above figure shows that since 1990 there has not been much substantial change in the arable and pasture area and it has remained more or less constant. Total farm land has remained around 50% of the total land in Germany. However, there has been a substantial change in the agricultural sector if East and West Germany are looked at what they were before the 1990 unification. In former East Germany, farm employment fell by 20% of its 1989 levels (oecd.org). The West German part contributes to 75% of the livestock farming of the country. The farm sizes here are very small. The Eastern part has huge farms (200 hectares) and most of the agricultural produce of the country comes from there. Most of the farming here is capital intensive farming (oecd.org). â€Å"With a share of 61 percent of all sales in agriculture in 1998, animal production is the main reason why Germany still is one of the leading agricultural nations in t he EU (total production: DM 63.9 billion, crop production: DM 25.9 billion, animal production: DM 38.0 billion†