History of agriculture in Chile

Agriculture in Chile has a long history dating back to the Pre-Hispanic period. Indigenous peoples practised varying types of agriculture, from the oases of the Atacama Desert to as far south as the Guaitecas Archipelago (43° S).^[1] Potato was the staple food in the populous Mapuche lands.^[2] Llama and chilihueque herding was practised by various indigenous groups.^[3][4]

[Chile] is rich in pastures and cultivated fields, in which all kind of animals and plants can be breed or grown, there is plenty of very beautiful wood for making houses, and plenty of firewood, and rich gold mines, and all land is full of them...

— Pedro de Valdivia to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

The arrival of the Spanish disrupted in many places local agriculture as indigenous populations shrunk and mining rose to prominence. Mapuches in south-central Chile adopted sheep, wheat and the horse from the Spanish.^[5][6] Further south in Chiloé apple trees and pigs proved successful introductions into local potato-based agriculture.^[6] As the Spanish were repulsed from much of southern Chile, Central Chile became increasingly populated and exploited with husbandry becoming the most prominent agricultural activity in Spanish-ruled areas in the 17th century. In parallel to husbandry vineyards did also become more important.^[7] Spanish agriculture, centered on the hacienda, absorbed most of the scattered and declining indigenous populations of Central Chile.^[7] Much land in Central Chile was cleared with fire during this period.^[8] On the contrary open fields in southern Chile were overgrown as indigenous populations declined due to diseases introduced by the Spanish and warfare.^[9]

The 18th century saw the rise of wheat and wine for export to Peru.^[10][11][12]

Albeit many agricultural lands were devastated by the independence wars and outlaw banditry Chilean agriculture recovered fast and new lands were opened up for agriculture.^[13] This development, along with other factors, led to a conflict with free Mapuches in Araucanía. With the whole of Araucanía conquered in 1883 the region became the following decades known as the "granary of Chile". Dispossessed Mapuches were marginalized to small plots or mountainous terrain where their husbandry operations caused severe soil erosion. Chilean and foreign settlers intensive monoculture of wheat and logging also contributed to severe erosion. In the far south a sheep farming boom developed at the turn of the century as the Patagonian grasslands became settled.

Despite the development of irrigation canals,^[14] limited introduction of wage labour^[15][16] and apiculture^[14] much of Chilean agriculture remained backward in relation to other economic sectors.^[17][18] Inquilinaje, an institution reminiscent of feudalism remained into the 1960s.^[19]

As part of a policy of industrialization Chilean state invested in the late 1950s and early 1960s into dairy plants, refrigerated slaughterhouses, sugar refineries and transport infrastructure. The subsequent Chilean land reform brought profound changes to agriculture in the 1960s and 1970s. Large holdings (fundos) were partitioned and land distributed to campesinos and cooperatives. Farmers syndicates were legalized and promoted. As the military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet initiated a partial counter-reform in 1973 agriculture became increasingly run by large private enterprises and individuals who concentrated land ownership. Despite a setback during the Crisis of 1982, Chile's agriculture sector expanded in the 1980s, in particular fruit export.