Despite persistent rural-urban migration, the agricultural sector has continued to be of vital importance during the last seventy years. Explain, giving examples.
             In order to answer this question we need to understand why the agricultural sector in Latin America was important in the first place, and what changes have occurred over the last seventy years in the agricultural sector. Today despite an unprecedented growth in the urban sector the rural sector has continued to be of vital importance to Latin American countries, this is due to a number of different factors, as I shall explain in this essay. Firstly by giving a brief outline of Rural-Urban migration.
             Rural-urban migration began between 1900 and 1930. Initially it was the Countries that were enjoying the best economic growth that were the first to see substantial Rural-Urban migration. These Countries included Chile, Argentina and Cuba which had 20% urban population compared with Mexico and Brazil, which only had 10%. Over the next fifty years however all of Latin America saw a dramatic increase in their urban populations, which peaked at 1980.
             Historically Latin Americas economic difficulties, have to a large extent been due to their colonial experience. Colonisation gave Latin America much of its economic and political structures. Spain and Portugal initially set up trade in primary products, such as minerals, metals and sugar and cotton. These were traded almost exclusively with the mother country (Spain or Portugal). This pattern of trading continued throughout the colonial period. So we can see that due to the colonial past, reliance on primary products as the principal export was endemic in Latin America. However after Countries had gained independence, they often set about trying to implement changes that would rectify this problem. One such strategy was to try and establish a manufacturing base, which they hoped would decrease a Co...