Agriculture in Thailand is highly competitive, diversified and specialized and its exports are very successful internationally. Rice is the country's most important crop, with some 60 percent of Thailand's 13 million farmers growing it on almost half of Thailand's cultivated land. Thailand is a major exporter in the world rice market. Rice exports in 2014 amounted to 1.3 percent of GDP. Agricultural production as a whole accounts for an estimated 9-10.5 percent of Thai GDP. Forty percent of the population work in agriculture-related jobs. The farmland they work was valued at US$2,945 per rai (0.395 acre; 0.16 ha) in 2013. Most Thai farmers own fewer than eight hectares (50 rai) of land. Other agricultural commodities produced in significant amounts include fish and fishery products, tapioca, rubber, grain, and sugar. Exports of industrially processed foods such as canned tuna, pineapples, and frozen shrimp are on the rise. History Following the Neolithic Revolution, society in the area evolved from hunting and gathering, through phases of agro-cities, and into state-religious empires. From about 1000 CE, Tai wet glutinous rice culture determined administrative structures in a pragmatic society that regularly produced a saleable surplus. Continuing today, these systems consolidate the importance of rice agriculture to national security and economic well-being. Agricultural developments have meant that since the 1960s unemployment has fallen from over 60 percent to under 10 percent in the early-2000s. In the same period food prices halved, hunger decreased (from 2.55 million households in 1988 to 418,000 in 2007) and child malnutrition was reduced (from 17 percent in 1987 to seven percent in 2006). This has been achieved through a strong state role in ensuring investment in infrastructure, education, and access to credit and successful private initiatives in the agribusiness sector. This has supported Thailand's transition to an industrialised economy. Agriculture in transition Agriculture expanded during the 1960s and 1970s as it had access to new land and unemployed labour. Between 1962 and 1983, the agricultural sector grew by 4.1 percent a year on average and in 1980 it employed over 70 percent of the working population. Yet, the state perceived developments in the agricultural sector as necessary for industrialisation and exports were taxed in order to keep domestic prices low and raise revenue for state investment in other areas of the economy. As other sectors developed, labourers went in search of work in other sectors of the economy and agriculture was