Peri-urban Land Use Patterns in the Argentine Agro-industrial Model: A Focus on Dominant Genetically Modified Crops and Pesticide Use

Abstract

This research aims to determine and quantify peri-urban land-use patterns for genetically modified crops, woody and nonwoody vegetation, and noncrop areas around Argentine cities where the agro-industrial model is implemented. Through a selection process, a database of urban areas for 715 cities was obtained. Perimeter rings of 100, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 m were used to calculate the areas occupied by the different peri-urban land covers, total crops, no crops, and tree cover. As a general pattern, it is observed that as larger peripheral areas are included, the predominance of the total crop class increases, while that of no crops and tree cover decreases. In addition, it was estimated that an average of 9.7 million kilograms of pesticides are being used per crop season on the 1.8 million hectares analysed, that is, on the 2,000 peripheral meters of the 715 cities under study.