The local globalization of the fruit, changes and the unequal rural development in Latin America: an analysis of the complex of export of Chilean fruit

Abstract

Some comentators see Chile as the most successful example of a developing country which has become involved in the global fruit export complex. The neoliberal reforms of the 1970s and 1980s helped precipitate a large boom in such exports. At the present time, Chile is the major fruit exporter in the Southern Hemisphere. Inevitably, contact with global forces has induced rapid local and regional change, mediated through (largely) multinational companies. This has fundamentally altered the nature of social and economic relations of production in the Chilean countryside. The objective of this article is to illustrate how neoliberalism has led to unequal and unsustainable rural development in Chile, and how well-targetted state regulation could alleviate some of the problems currently facing the fruit sector. More generally, the article intends to be critical of the neoliberal consensus which is now almost hegemonic among Latin American states.

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