Agriculture as Growth Sector?

"For decades, conventional wisdom has accustomed us to thinking that agricultural activity had to be, as far as employment is concerned, residual: the increase in agricultural productivity, the urbanization of societies, the evolution to a services economy would make marginal that which had constituted the framework of civilizations for centuries. A page had supposedly been definitively turned.

[T]he ideas of one era may die; its dogmas may be overturned. Consequently, I have the immense pleasure of informing you that in these times of mental and political stagnation we can create a million jobs in Europe, five hundred thousand in France - family farmer jobs.

[D]o you really believe you're going to reduce the number of unemployed - now resuming its upward curve - by manufacturing still more cars, planes and packaging? We need to move our mental furniture around: agriculture is a sector of the future. "