Poverty and Agricultural Growth: Chile in the 1990s

This paper analyzes the roles of agriculture in reducing poverty. Following the methodology proposed by López (2002), three channels by which agricultural growth reduces poverty are tested: (i) its effects on the real wage of unskilled workers (and/or its possible effect in reducing their unemployment); (ii) the direct impact of agricultural growth on the income of poor farmers; and, (iii) the effect on real food prices. The paper concludes that the pro-poor role of agricultural expansion is dramatic. Agricultural growth tends to improve all measures of poverty significantly with head count falling around 7.3% as a consequence of a 4.5% increase in agricultural output. An important result is that while the economy-wide effects taking place via food prices and especially the labour market are quantitatively important the direct income effects on farmers are almost negligible.