Caracterización de la microempresa agrícola del sur de Chile

Abstract

The small enterprises are relevant among all economic units of Chile, and they use a large amount of labor; however, the agricultural sector have no classification of small enterprises and have no quantified the labor supply. Thus, the aim of this paper is the social, economic and productive characterization of small agricultural enterprises that belong to the north area of the Province of Valdivia, and also estimate their contribution of employment. Descriptive statistic was used to characterize the enterprises, which allow a qualitative and quantitative analysis. A total of 139 enterprises are analyzed that belong to the Province of Valdivia. The analysis was based on the MIDEPLAN classification, which defines a micro-enterprise as any unity of 9 workers or less. In addition, SERCOTEC classification is used, which classify the enterprises according with its yearly sales. All small agricultural enterprises are related to farm activities, mainly dairy production, in the Máfil area, and no dairy farms are found at the Corral area. The results show that small enterprises have an important contribution of labor, particularly among relatives and they have low rates of employment with salary.