World Food Policy Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 23

World Food Policy

Table 1. Basic structure of Chilean primary agriculture: VA by sector in 2008

Sector
number
1
Agriculture
2
3
Fruiticulture
4
Livestock—
rearing and
fattening of
animals

5
6
7
8
9

Forest

10
11
Fishing
12
Sum sectors 1–9
Sum 1–10
Sum 1–12

Activity
Annual crops
Vegetables
Grapes
Other fruits
Cattle (raw milk, calves
and steers)
Pork
Poultry
Other animals
Support for agriculture
and livestock*
Forestry
Aquaculture
Extractive fishing
Agricultural
Agroforestry
Renewable primary

Participation
(% total VA)
0.31
0.37
0.34
0.71
0.32
0.12
0.14
0.02
0.19
0.82
0.13
0.34
2.53
3.35
3.82

Source: Table 1 GDP, National Accounts of Chile: Benchmark Compilation 2008, Banco Central de Chile.
Note that the primary livestock sector includes activities up to the slaughterhouse in the case of meat
animals. *Services exclusively aimed at the primary sector (e.g., well digging and fencing).

household consumption, government, or
foreign consumers (exports)—and a part
used in investment. To illustrate, consider
two nonprimary activities usually
associated with agriculture which have a
significant degree of backward linkage.
One is “meat processing” (sector #19 in
Chile’s full official list of 111 activities);
the second is “winemaking” (sector #31);
both are officially manufacturing, not
counted in agricultural VA. Nevertheless,
meat processing and the wine industries
would not exist without the local, primary
production of livestock and grapes.
Both illustrate the conceptual difference
between the accounting system used
in official statistics and the perspective

usually adopted by agricultural policy
analysts and decision makers.

Table 2a presents a summary of
the input costs in meat production. Of the
177 products or services that are reported
in the disaggregated intermediate-use
matrix, only nine contribute more than
1% of the total costs of production of
meat: the primary products of livestock
(cattle, pigs, poultry, and other animals),
products of the same sector of “processing
and preserving of meat,” plastic products,
engineering and transport services, and
advertising and professional services. All
other activities individually contribute
very little and add about 8.4% of the
total cost. Within the meat sector (from

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