José Suárez Fanjul

José Suárez Fanjul (28 August 1916 – 22 December 2006) was a Chilean agronomist and politician who served as Minister of Agriculture from August to December 1955 during the second administration of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.

Early life

Suárez was born in Punta Arenas, Chile, on 28 August 1916, the son of Manuel Suárez and Consuelo Fanjul. He received his primary and secondary education at the Liceo de Hombres de Punta Arenas before studying at the School of Agronomy of the University of Chile, graduating as an agronomist in 1942. He subsequently obtained a master's degree in science from the University of Wisconsin in the United States in 1944.

In 1956, he married Patricia Phillips Tagle in Santiago, with whom he had two daughters, Constanza and María Consuelo.

Political career

Suárez entered public service in 1942 as head of the Forage Plants Section of the Ministry of Agriculture, remaining there until 1947. During this period, he served on the committee responsible for drafting the Plan Agrario and organised and directed professional training courses for agronomists and veterinarians. He later worked in agriculture and as a technical consultant, while also publishing works on soil conservation and forage crops, including La conservación de los suelos en Chile (1946), co-authored with Manuel Rodríguez Zapata, and Trébol encarnado (1952).

On 17 November 1954, Suárez became dean of the newly established Faculty of Agronomy and Livestock Sciences at the University of Concepción. An auditorium at the university was subsequently named after him.

During the second administration of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, Suárez was appointed Minister of Agriculture on 19 August 1955, serving until 9 December of that year.

From 1963 to 1964, he served as general manager of Agropecoop. In the 1964 Chilean presidential election, he supported Christian Democratic candidate Eduardo Frei Montalva. He subsequently served as vice-president of the Empresa de Comercio Agrícola (ECA) until 1966.

Suárez died on 22 December 2006, aged 90.