Agribusiness and large-scale farming: capitalist globalization in argentine agriculture

CARLA GRAS; VALERIA HERNÁNDEZ

REVUE CANADIENNE D4ETUDES DU DEVELOPPEMENT-CANADIAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID)

Año: 2014 vol. 35 p. 339 - 357

0225-5189

In this article, we offer a meso-level scale of analysis of large-scale farms to examine how globalization and the neoliberal food regime have materialized in Argentine agriculture. It is worth noting that, far from being unaffected, large-scale local farming has expanded. Moreover, the expansion of the neoliberal food regime has not only displaced family farmers and generated increasing social resistance since the 2000s (though not in the same extent as in Mexico or Brazil), but this expansion has also entrenched the presence of large-scale local firms. Although aligned with the neoliberal regime agenda, these firms develop their own economic strategies, which cannot simply be considered a product of transnational corporate needs. In this article, we are not able to fully address the relationship between large local agricultural firms and global corporations (which, in Argentina, are mainly located in input supply and export trade). Nevertheless, we intend to offer a first step by examining large-scale local farming. Our argument is that the analysis of the reorganization of large-scale firms and the different modes in which they have appropriated the productive logics associated with the neoliberal food regime are key issues to fully understand the way in which Argentina has been integrated into global agriculture markets. Our analysis provides insights that will further our understanding of the role of large land holdings and their effects on family farms that are small and medium-sized holdings, representing 75% of all farms in Argentina