摘要：The decreasing share of production agriculture in the U.S. economy in general and Delaware in particular has raised questions about the amount of government resources being spent on the local agricultural sector. A basic question in the debate is: "What is the real economic contribution of agriculture?" This study looks at the economic role of agriculture in Delaware, presenting different perspectives of what agriculture is and what it contributes to the state economy. Based on three definitions of agriculture, the economic impacts as measured by shares to total employment, output, and value added were estimated using IMPLAN, an input-output modeling software. In each economic impact measure, the share of the local agricultural sector to the total Delaware economy ranged from around 2% to 6% in 1991.
