CEPAL Review - Volume 1987, Issue 33, 1987

This article deals with the effects on agriculture of the economic policy associated with the crisis and the economic adjustment. T he author starts by recounting the most notable features of the macroeconomic policies which in relative terms marginalized agriculture from the most vigorous stimuluses of growth and of the specific policies designed to offset these effects. Before the crisis the combination of these policies had shaped a complex and costly pattern of agricultural development, the results of which were successful for a while with respect to the growth of agriculture in many countries, but failed with respect to equality and alleviation of rural poverty.

In this article the author analyses the evolution of the Latin American agricultural sector from a long-term viewpoint, centering on the relation between the evolution of various macroeconomic policies and that of agriculture in the region. Among these policies, he highlights the importance of domestic relative prices and the significant impact of policies relating to the form of insertion of the region in the international economy in the areas of trade, finance and production.

In this article the author analyses the evolution of Brazil’s rural sector in recent decades and some of its socio-economic effects both in the countryside and in the towns. Although only Brazil is considered here, the processes discussed and their repercussions are found to differing degrees in many other countries of Latin America.

More than 33 States and territories make up the Caribbean basin today, For several centuries they were colonies of European powers —Spain, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom— and even today those countries, now joined by the United States of America, still make their dominant presence felt.

This article is intended to provide a brief overview of some of the links which need to be established between sectoral and macro-planning. In the process it discusses some of the planning methods used in the small open economies of the Caribbean and provides some ideas as to the direction in which they may evolve over time. While examples are drawn principally from the experience of Trinidad and Tobago, the basic principles, as well as the more general comments, apply faithfully to the planning patterns prevailing in most Caribbean countries.

This article is chiefly concerned with the dominant trends in agriculture and the economy up to the crisis of the 1970s and the adjustment programmes and their effects on the sector, and it offers some thoughts about the main challenges and the role of agriculture in tackling them.

At the end of the 1970s the development style based on accelerated industrial grow th and on modernization and expansion of the exports segment of agriculture was looking very vulnerable. This was borne out by the sharply expansionary economic policy adopted in 1979 which generated faster inflation against a background of an increased trade deficit and a very unfavourable external situation.

Agriculture was the most im portant activity in the Colombian economy in the 1970s. It contributed 25% o f the total gross domestic product, absorbed 32% of the labour force and generated about 75% of total exports. In the middle of the decade the country experienced an unexpected boom in coffee and certain illegal products which, in conjunction w ith a stronger influx of external resources, strengthened the position of international reserves. However, at the end of the decade the w orld recession, the fall in international export prices and the accumulated exchange rate slippage were sapping the economy’s strength — a situation accentuated by the persistence o f structural rigidities.

At the end of the 1970s Gista Rica was hit by the worst crisis in its history. The coffee boom ended abruptly in 1978, causing a sizeable drop in export earnings. Furthermore, public spending increased sharply, generating a deficit which was financed largely by short-term foreign borrowing. In addition, the exchange-rate slippage, in conjunction with the deterioration in the terms of trade, brought about the exhaustion of monetary reserves, and this situation was exacerbated even further by the higher interest rates in the international market.

In this article the author analyses the situation of Chile’s agriculture and economy in tw o periods. In the first, from the end of 1973 to June 1981, the economy grew at a high rate, in flation fell, wages rose, fiscal surpluses were achieved and reserves builtup. In contrast, unemployment grew sharply, investment and saving fell, income distribution deteriorated, and the private sector’s debt reached very high levels. The balance-of-payments deficit, the worsening of the terms of trade, the higher interest rates and the very large foreign debt acted as detonators of a crisis which stamped its mark on the second period. This period, from 1981 on, is characterized by the introduction of various adjustment measures designed to correct the imbalances w ithout altering the essential nature of the adopted model.

In the 1970s the production and export of oil caused enormous economic and social changes in Ecuador. The gross dometic product grew at rates of between 14 and 25%, and the re were considerable in creases in the formation of capital, indemand — especially in the publicsector— and in im ports. The first signs of a balance-of-payments problem appeared in 1975 and they reappeared with force in 1977, reaching two years later levels of external debt whose service took 65% of export earnings.

This article reviews the development of the Mexican economy in general and the agricultural sector in particular from the Second World War to the 1982 crisis.

This article considers nine selected products which account for 50% of the gross value of output and also have a clear regional differentiation. The period analysed is from 1970 to 1985.

The vigorous conceptual, methodological and technical retooling of public policy planning and co-ordination being carried forward by the Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning (ILPES) has involved a greater concentration on market economies, which are in the majority in the region. I shall confine myself here to discussing some of the considerations which the Institute has brought to the attention of the governments in various forums during the past three years, rather than dwelling on some of the more traditional criticisms of planning.