Transitions among family-based agricultural contractors in Argentina: labor, pluriactivity and rural development

NEIMAN, G.; BLANCO, MARIELA; NEIMAN, MELINA

Clermond-Ferrand

Simposio; Second International Symposium on Work in Agriculture; 2021

International Association on Work in Agriculture

Labor outsourcing has become increasingly relevant in agriculture during the last decades in Argentina. The number of farms outsourcing tasks and labor, the diversity of crops reached, and the quantity of hectares cultivated through contractors have been steadily increasing since then.Besides, contractors themselves are undergoing relevant transformations considering machinery working capacity and the type of technologies introduced, and therefore giving rise to internal differences among them, distinguishing traditional, small-scale and family-based agents from larger and more heavily capitalized contractors.Specifically, this paper aims to analyze family-based agricultural contractors in the so-called pampas region of Argentina, identifying their main transformations and current conditions, and the challenges they must confront in midst of the present local agrarian development trends. The above-mentioned region is one of the most fertile areas in the world, where cereals and cattle were the main products at the end of 19th century and being responsible for the initial integration of the country to the world markets. During the last decades of 20th century intensification of agriculture took place, with a remarkable growth of soybean production for export, and the use of new technological packages including transgenic seeds, no-tillage techniques and a chemical inputs (for soil fertilization and weed control among the most relevant). Alongside with these transformations, land distribution changed with diminishing numbers of farmers and a consequent increase in the average size of farms, and growing capital inflows of diverse origins (national and international, agrarian and non-agrarian).In this context, the prospects for family-based contractors, comprising the more traditional ones and those who have managed to adapt to the present agrarian development pattern, are also assessed in this paper while the paper also examines the effects on local rural development.