Drylands development model in Argentina's central west: the case of Mendonza Province

Abstract

Argentina’s central west encompasses a vast dryland territory, organized on the basis of a great contradiction: the confrontation between oasis and rainfed area (desert lands with no irrigation). Within a territory under arid conditions with different desertification levels, Mendoza is a paradigmatic case. Development model fostered at the end of the 19th century was based on the supremacy of strategic resources: water and soil. A mode of regional development reliant on irrigated lands was since then supported to consolidate the wine export model. Nowadays, Mendoza’s non-irrigated lands and their people are marginal, not merely by the effect of a restrictive environment but also by the combined action of a fragile environment and the weightier social, political and economic forces that have banished them to the system’s margins. Analysis of the region’s history informs that non-irrigated spaces provided both strategic natural resources for development of irrigated areas and labor for starting productive activities. Simultaneously, non-irrigated lands were curtailed in their right of access to strategic resources for their social reproduction: water and land.This report delves further into the analysis of the dynamics of territory construction whereby some territories stand as central while others are relegated to marginal positions. The analysis goes deeper into a case study with signs of a serious process of territory impoverishment, social exclusion and progress of desertification.