Exploring the liberal transformation: The Rockefeller Foundation and the Green Revolution in Chile

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the role of the Rockefeller Foundation in Chile from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, in the context of an agricultural development program and as part of the global process of the Green Revolution. This case study has not been sufficiently analyzed by historiography, which has so far mostly focused on national contexts, for example Mexico in Latin America. However, the Chilean case analyzed here has interesting peculiarities because here, experiments in modernization were undertaken by private US actors in Latin America. This was the model, in addition to programs in Mexico and Colombia, for the global expansion of the Green Revolution. The sources for the chapter, from the archives of the Rockefeller Foundation, demonstrate there was significant circulation and exchange of seeds, techniques, and experts. They also provide key information on the complementarity of interests between US foreign policy (for which Chile was a privileged interlocutor), the Rockefeller foundation, and hemisphere-wide organizations working to modernize agriculture.