Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Studies on Agribusiness: A Bibliometric Analysis From 1945 To 2020

Abstract

Agribusiness, an important sector of the economy, has aroused the academic interest, implying a range of scientific productions that can generate knowledge for the field of agricultural sciences and several other. This study aimed to investigate the behavior of  international scientific literature on agribusiness, in order to be able to guide the themes that are emerging within the segment. For that, we used the
technique of bibliometric data analysis, conducted in one of the main indexing bases in the world, the Web of Science (WoS), through the software EndNote and CiteSpace. A literature review was carried out, identifying 787 works published between the years 1945 to 2020. There was a significant growth in academic production around the agribusiness agenda. As of 2007, Brazil and the United States
(USA) were the countries with the largest number of publications on the subject, with emphasis on the greater diversity of journals. It was perceived that agribusiness are being more studied in a transdisciplinary way, with a plurality of themes, such as innovation, performance, strategic management, development and sustainability. Economic and environmental development, oriented by topics of sustainability, of its most varied matrices and possibilities, have been increasing considerably. It was concluded that research on agribusiness is expanding, in different areas of knowledge, allowing us to understand that this concept, supported by the network image, is less and less conditioned
to agriculture in isolation, but to its productive chain. The article has yet a figure that resumes the future research studies.