Soybean Agribusiness in Argentina (1990–2015): Socio-Economic, Territorial, Environmental, and Political Implications

Abstract

Nowadays, soybean value chain is both the major expression of agribusiness and one of the most troublesome uses of territory of Argentina. This chapter is aimed to analyzing the worrying socio-economic, territorial, environmental, and political implications unchained by the expansion of the soybean’s pattern during the last 25 years. On the basis of scholarly literature and both official and unofficial sources of data, we have studied the restructuration of the rural sector, the concentration of both the rural property and the agro-industrial chain, the new territorial enclosures, the socio-ecological and health consequences of the soybean’s advance, and the influence of the transnational seed industry on the farmers’ subordination. Our results show a substantial reduction of both the amount of rural units and the traditional production areas, the emergence of new leasing practices, the accumulation chain’s vertical integration, the growth of the land’s concentration, the expulsion of aborigines and peasants, the increase of deforestation and environmental degradation, the loss of legal and food sovereignty, and the serious impacts on the population’s health due to the massive fumigations with agrochemicals. The chapter’s findings suggest that soybean agribusiness should be considered as an irrational use of territory for most of the national society.