Vanuatu - Agriculture The most recent economic data available
show that agriculture, forestry and fishing contributed 25.7
percent of Vanuatu's GDP in 1999. Although a further breakdown
is not available from that year, data from 1995 shows that
subsistence agriculture made up about a third of this sector,
forestry and logging another third, and the rest made up of
commercial agriculture, particularly copra production and beef
production. According to the Asian Development Bank, agriculture
is more important to the Vanuatu economy than it is to any other
Pacific economy, since it does not have the mineral and forestry
resources of Papua New Guinea or Solomon Islands, the
manufacturing base of Fiji, the marine resources of Micronesia,
or the remittances of Polynesia. Throughout Vanuatu, subsistence
agriculture is the mainstay of the village economy, since 80
percent of the population lives in villages. Food crops produced
include taro, yams, kumara (sweet potato), bananas, coconut, and
a great range of fruit an