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

This chapter analyzes the role played by the Rockefeller Foundation in Chile from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s in relation to an agricultural development program under the umbrella of the so-called Green Revolution. This case study, not sufficiently analyzed by historiography, delves into the The Chilean case, a country of special interest, representing a territory of modernizing experimentation on the part of private US actors, shows how this process occurred even before the better-known cases of Asian countries. Indeed, it was one of the most deeply integrated in the Green Revolution. The sources used, from the Rockefeller Foundation archive, show consistent circulation and exchange of seeds, techniques, and experts. In addition, they provide us with key information on the complementarity of interests between the U.S. foreign policy (for which Chile was a privileged interlocutor), the philanthropic foundation, and hemispheric organizations of agricultural modernization.