Agribusiness and tensions in the Argentine Pampas territory: an analysis from social relations in agricultural production

Abstract

In line with transformations worldwide, in Argentina the neoliberal measures, initiated in the last military dictatorship and completed in the 1990s, constituted the fundamental basis for transformations in agriculture to gain another momentum.

In this framework, the progress of a new agricultural model, called agribusiness, is consolidated. Although different studies mark how different actors approach or distance themselves from this model, in our case we propose to problematize this issue from specific productive spaces, and focusing on the daily productive practices in the sector. The qualitative study was conducted in three departaments in the province of Buenos Aires, and producers with different profiles were interviewed, relieving a total of 38 agricultural holdings. In this analysis we find a distance from a good part of the producing actors, in the first place, in the materialization of the productive logics, in the second, in the way in which social relations are articulated in the sphere of production, and, in the third place, in the types of entrepreneurs that conform from these dimensions. Finally, we point out a series of tensions between the different subjects in the framework of the advancement of agribusinesses in the territories.