Rural Credit, Agricultural Extension and Poverty Alleviation: Past Experience and Future Perspectives

After 17 years of military dictatorship characterised by a preoccupation with microeconomic efficiency and macroeconomic stabilisation, the alleviation of poverty has once again become a political priority in Chile. This chapter attempts to contribute to the current debate on anti-poverty strategies by reviewing the experience of selected policies targeted at small farmers from the 1960s to the 1980s.