Flex-crops and the transformation of the corporate agri-food model in Argentina. Social inequalities and environmental impacts in regional perspective

TITTOR, ANNE; GARCÍA, A.

Koln

Conferencia; 5TH GLOBAL CONFERENCE ON ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 2018 (GCEG 2018); 2018

Universitat zu Koln

In the last two decades, the agricultural model of Argentina underwent a global transformation and was fully inserted into a globalized economy. Especially soybean expanded enormously: now it is grown in more than half of the agricultural land of Argentina. As almost 100% of soybeans are genetically modified, and are grown in direct seeding, production requires less labor, includes a greater division of labor and deepens dependencies of transnational corporations. Other forms of land use were displaced and intensified the profound social, productive and economic transformations of rural areas (Lapegna 2016, Gras and Hernández 2013). The number of agricultural producers decreased, the concentration of land increased and oligopolistic structures were established within the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides segment. The transnational actors, the application of technology and financialization increasingly inscribed their logic in agriculture. Almost the entire agricultural sector in Argentina is globalized today and is part of the corporate agrifood model (Gorenstein, 2016, McMichael, 2009, 2012, Delgado Cabeza, 2010).With the corporate agri-food model, the crops of flexible crops that have multiple and / or flexible uses such as food, animal feed, fuel and other commercial and industrial uses (in Argentina: soy, corn, cereals) play a key role. The decision process, if and where food is produced, changed profoundly, as did the commercial strategies of the sector, as well as the position of family farmers within the system. The proposed document addresses these ongoing transformations and explores the strategies of transnational and national actors to shape, lead and resist this development. Specifically, the research analyzes the consequences of the production of flexible crops in Argentina at the beginning of the 21st century, in terms of: a) social inequalities concerning access to and control over land as well as labour conditions; b) in terms of environmental impacts of the corporate agro-fuel model concerning pesticides and biodiversity as well as health effects c) effects on consumer prices and their consequences for food sovereignty in Argentina.