The process of agriculturization in the Argentinean extra-Pampean regions: unsustainability and boundaries in a model of transformation. The province of Chaco (1980-2010)

ZARRILLI ADRIAN

British Agricultural History Society

British Agricultural History Society

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2014

0002-1490

The process of expansion of the agricultural frontier in Argentina has been a dynamicmovement conditioned by favorable market situations and by the availability of apt andinexpensive lands. Since the last part of the 1990 decade, Argentina almost tripled the volumeof its harvests of diverse grains and, at the same time, there was also a remarkable increase innegative social effects such as poverty and indigence, among other issues.In this context of an outstanding transformation, the Pampean region continues to bethe great productive nucleus of the country. However, the changes affect other regions ?and,among them, the Chaquean region in particular, where it is possible to foresee a noticeableincrease in the agricultural and stockbreeding activities, because of the productive potential ofits lands, as well as because of the difference in rent that comes as a result of the price of thefields, which is quite lesser than the price of those in the Pampean region. As a consequence,in the aforementioned region, some processes that generate important and questionabletransformations are taking place:- in the natural scenery where the cleared areas multiply, as a result of the great expansion ofthe agricultural frontier;- in the agricultural scenery, due to the great decrease in the area where cotton is sown, and tothe remarkable predominance of soy;- in the stockbreeding production, due to the great increase in the sown pastures, especially inlarge estates;- in the model for the occupation of the territory, where, instead of the old settlements ownedby small producers, large and medium-sized establishments predominate;- in the great fall in the rural population (because soy uses less workforce than cotton), whichcauses migrations towards the poverty belts in large cities.