Agribusiness Development

Agriculture/agribusiness plays a strategic role in labor absorption, capital formation, foreign exchange, providing food supply, and supply a market for domestically produced industrial goods. Globalization has suddenly changed the way leaders of nations in managing agriculture/agribusiness development. Many countries are more open, moving toward democracy. Through the impact of desentralization, the government is shifting from dominating development in the past to people participation. This implies that the private sector will play a more active role in agriculture/agribusiness and rural development. With the new vision, agriculture should not be seen as a separate sector (on-farm), but in a more broad way which is agribusiness consisting of all related activities from upstream to downstream agribusiness subsystem. Good governance is a prerequisite to encourage private institutions to participate in agribusiness and rural development. Policy measures to improve coordination between public and private institutions includes: infrastucture development, development of seed industry, development and strengthen agro-industry in rural areas, development of the private sector, micro, small, and medium size enterprises, macroeconomic stability, land market, deregulation, strengthening of governance, environment sustainability, and improving rural productivity. All of these measures must be transparent and comunicated to all stakeholders in agriculture/agribusiness and rural development.