Soy Landscapes: Production, Environment and Quality of Life in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina (1996-2020)

JOSE MUZLERA

The Age of Soybean.

The White Horse Press

Lugar: London; Año: 2022;

This chapter describes and analyses, focusing on the province of Buenos Aires, in the Pampas region of Argentina, the landscape, environmental, social and productive transformations linked to soybean production over the last 30 years. The analysis of the transformations associated with soya is an analysis of agribusiness, the productive paradigm of agribusiness in recent decades. The period chosen, 1996-2020, has its raison d´être in that 1996 is the year in which the first transgenic crop, soya, was released onto the Argentine market. As will be seen in the following pages, agribusiness is based on a short-term and individualistic logic aimed at maximising monetary profits without taking into account people´s quality of life or social and environmental sustainability.