NEO-LIBERALISM IN CHILE AND ITS IMPACTS ON AGRICULTURE AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION OF QUINOA: A LESSON FOR STRENGTHENING AND DEVELOPING NEW PARTNERSHIPS

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceSince 1973 Chile started a hard neo-liberal economy. This model affected education, health care and all economic activities, including agriculture. No protection and/or planning actions ruled the country that achieved a high GDP (US$14,510/year, per capita) respect to other Latino American countries, but also a very unequal salary distribution (Gini coefficient=0.54). It also achieved a worst land property distribution (Gini coef.=0.95 in some regions). Small-scale landowners received limited financial aid, they sold lands mainly re-oriented to monocultures for exportation markets. Farmers became rather workers of a growing agro-industry. Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) a highly nutritive crop, cultivated since the last 7 thousand years in the Andes almost disappeared during the conquest but it was transmitted by ancient Incas to Chilean cultures, people living in very different agro-ecological contexts from 18ºS (Altiplano) to 41ºS (Chiloé Island). The crop was maintained in Chile where dust roads were cut by winter rains and where city supermarkets could not establish. There quinoa became one of their staple food and it escaped free-market driven agriculture that did not promote its cultivation. The 1470 hectares of quinoa in Chile (2007) could increase as Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia do export over 54 thousands hectares under biological certification. This new modern scenario might help to reactivate the culture of this crop in Chile. But the absence of farmer's organizations might become a constraint. Crop biodiversity is poorly known and mass cultivation could further reduce it unless some knowledge/research-action of this diversity could help to create conscience of its importance