Hunger, Obesity and Soy: The Corporate Agribusiness Diet in Argentina

Abstract

The global agri-food system is a key element for the recognition of the Anthropocene as a new epoch when ‘humans have become dominating drivers of change’ (Willet et al., 2019: 461). It implicates a climate impact as well as the transformation in the human body. The aim of this research is to analyse the impact on corporate agribusiness in Argentina during the 21st century in which the overproduction of food has generated new ways of hunger and social inequalities that make the original idea of the Anthropocene more complex (Arias-Maldonado, 2016; Barnosky, 2013; Crutzen, 2002; Waters et al., 2014). It is necessary to include this topic in social science studies of the Anthropocene in order to evaluate the real impact (Forrester and Smith, 2018; Hamilton, 2017; Latour, 2017, 2018; Mann and Wainwright, 2018; Purdy, 2015).Industrial food increases obesity in the world population which results in a central driver in the Anthropocene. It is part of what Otero (2018) defines as the neoliberal diet with a small oligopolistic group of food-manufacturing multinational corporations who globalise an energy-dense diet which drives the obesity crisis and the rise of the industrial diet. Food insecurity also affects the population of food-producing countries such as Argentina.In the Argentinean case, the consequences of soy monocultures include an important loss of biodiversity and a dramatic increase of the overweight population. This chapter analyses the new social inequalities that are linked to the access to nutrients in a country that produces calories for 400 million human beings. Many of these calories are high-nutritional quality proteins from the soy monoculture for export (Diaz et al., 2017). The access to proteins in the domestic market is ensured by the high consumption of beef. The uncertainties defining Beck's (1998, 2002) risk society and the ‘making live’ of Foucault's (1999, 2007, 2012) biopower are the conceptual framework of this chapter. The research question is, how does the Anthropocene diet foster nutritional inequalities in a country that includes an important corporate agribusiness?The highest consumption of vegetable oils stems from the energy-dense foods, which characterises the neoliberal diet. Between 1982 and 2002, vegetable oils ‘contributed more than any other food group to the increase of calorie availability worldwide’ (Hawkes, 2006: 4). Argentina is the main soy oil exporter worldwide and plays a key role in the global supply of these kinds of oils. The corporate agribusiness encourages the soy monoculture, which negatively affects fresh food production for the domestic market, even beef which is a central focus point in the Argentinean diet. These changes in the Argentinean diet were made possible through a combination of a neoliberal state, corporate agribusiness, biotechnology and the supermarkets, which together lead to malnutrition (Otero, 2018).The Argentinean case is relevant to the Anthropocene diet since it presents similarities, as well as differences, regarding the neoliberal diet. The early consolidation of a unified dietary pattern in Argentina, in which poor and rich people share a social link to food, is a different starting point in Popkin's et al (2019) nutritional transition. High beef consumption, which distinguishes the Argentinean diet, remains among the highest ones worldwide. However, one of the consequences of neoliberal policies is the fact that its consumption is reduced by half of 80 kg/year/capita in December 1980 to 40kg/year/capita in December 2020 (CiCCRA, 2020). The country does not need to import food but the nutritional quality of food is reduced because the consumption of ultra-processed food increases. These were changes that went beyond class components and new social differentiating elements such as excess weight and short stature have emerged as new forms of inequalities (Galicia et al., 2016).In order to analyze the Argentinean case I use secondary data (FAO-STATS) and national level statistics for health (ENNyS 2), economic indicators (EPH, ENGHO),1fn1 as well as information provided by private institutions such as ‘Cámara de la industria y comercio de carnes y derivados de la República Argentina – the Argentine Republic Chamber of Industry and Commerce of meat and its derivatives’ (CICCRA). These sources allow measuring the impact of corporate agribusiness of the Pampa region on the whole Argentinean diet, beyond regional differences and class components. They are the most updated data with greater geographic scope for the case study.