Capitalization Strategies and Labor in Agricultural Machinery Contractors in Argentina

MUZLERA, JOSÉ

Relations in Globalized Food

Esmerald

Año: 2014; p. 57 - 74

During the 2001-2002 agricultural season, the machine contractors (businessmen specialized in providing agricultural machinery services) in the Argentine Pampas region harvested 57% of the cultivated area and performed field operations (without counting the harvest) in 107% of the cultivated area. At a country level, if the services hired between the seasons 1987-1988 and 2001-2002 are compared, a 57% plowing and seeding increase was recorded and although more recent official data is missing, all the indicators suggest that this labour outsourcing trend is intensifying. In this way, machine contractors do not just perform field operations in an unprecedented surface but, through self-employment and the employees they hire, tend to extend the hegemony and homogeneity of the qualified labour force of the Pampas agriculture, which has become more difficult to obtain in the last years. This paper will describe and analyze the labour organization of these subjects, the particularities and dynamics of the labour force they hire as well as the ways in which that labour force affects the capitalization strategies.