Deep Roots

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The Agricultural Development Institute’s work

in Chile: promoting local economic development

Carlos Furche, Minister of Agriculture and Octavio Sotomayor, Director, Agricultural Development Institute, Chile

easant family agriculture in Chile comprises some

260,000 farms, equivalent to almost 90 per cent of

all production units in the country.

From an economic standpoint, this segment contributes 22

per cent of the gross value of production generated by Chilean

agriculture; owns 25 per cent of the assets; controls 44 per

cent of the surface area expressed as Basic Irrigation Hectares

(hectare equivalent of a same quality) and 38 per cent of the

irrigated area; and generates over 60 per cent of agricultural

employment. Its role in food production is significant, at

around 40-50 per cent of the value of annual production of

crops, vegetables, meat and bovine milk. The average size of

a peasant farm is 17 physical hectares.

One of the characteristics of peasant family agriculture is

its heterogeneity, which is expressed in a variety of produc-

tion systems, physical and economic sizes, technology and

productivity levels, and access to goods and services, among

others aspects. In this context, it is possible to recognize

two major segments to establish differentiated policies and

strategies. First, a group formed by producers that support a

multi-activity economic development strategy, that is to say,

combining self-employment on the farm with other activi-

ties outside it that allow the farmers to complement their

income. This group represents almost 60 per cent of peasant

family agriculture, equivalent to about 155,000 farms. The

farmers’ gross income from agriculture on the property

amounts to US$5,000 per year, which is complemented

by income from working as temporary and/or permanent

employees and social subsidies. Rural poverty, which still

amounts to 13 per cent of the country-dwelling population,

is concentrated in this segment.

The second group corresponds to what has been called the

‘commercial’ segment, which corresponds to producers with

greater productive resources, allowing them to deploy an

economic strategy based on their activity on the farm. They

Image: INDAP

Many family farmers combine self-employment on the farm with other income-generating activities outside it

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