From expectations to results: The agricultural transformation of Entre Ríos (1970-2018)

Abstract

In the last decades, the rural economy in Argentina coined the neologism "sojización". This refers to a well-known process in which the agricultural landscape has tended massively to monoculture for various reasons (international demand and prices, the emergence of planting pools, technological packages, diffusion of leasing, increase in the role of contractors, etc.) that made up the so-called "soybean model". The demand is dominant, and the external markets strongly demanded soybean, especially in the last century. The producers responded, stimulated by the benefits it brought both to them and the finances of the State, a duality not exempt from trances such as the so-called "conflict of the field". This work is part of a study that aims to analyze the process of cargo transport logistics in the province of Entre Rios in the last 70 years. For this purpose, it is essential to know the volume (potential and actual) of the extracted cargoes. Therefore, based on official statistics, the productive structure of inter-river transport in the last 50 years is presented, in which soybean production took place, at least to the producers' expectations, thanks to the planted area and the results of production. We will be able to see how the diversification of crops that operated in the three final decades of the last century gave way in the previous two to a soybeanization that was staining everything with green soy.