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ABSTRACT
The war in Ukraine has compromised one of the world’s largest grain production areas, opening possibilities for those few countries that together with Russia and Ukraine concentrate production. The article explores reverberations of this restructuring in global commodity trade in Argentina. It argues that agrarian capitalists have renewed pressures on capital valorization conditions, reshaping struggles over accumulation and challenging the state’s capacity to handle effects of the world crisis. The paper is intended to contribute to debates on agrarian extractivism in Latin America and calls attention to the complexity of state-capital relations for a better understanding of class political struggles.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to extend a thank you to Daniel Cáceres for critical engagement with the initial draft of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 ‘Why We Must Resist Geoeconomic Fragmentation – And How’, International Monetary Fund Blog, 2022.
2 Data taken from the S&P Global Agribusiness Index.
3 Data consulted on Producción Agrícola Mundial Website [https://produccionagricolamundial].
4 Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario, BCR (Rosario Trade Chamber) [https//bcr.com.ar].
5 Between 2008–2012 and 2016–2019, I carried out 314 interviews with farmers, farmer organization members, technical association members and other key informants at different moments and in different regions of the country (the Pampa region and the Northwest agricultural frontier), and surveyed over 540 commodity producers in 2010. I also participated in farmers’ meetings and assemblies during 2008–2009.
6 Unfortunately, census data does not adequately show these differences besides that of the size of units and land tenure, nor does it allow to identify when producers have more than one productive unit. Hence, we mainly count on estimations and case studies.
7 Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario, BCR (Rosario Trade Chamber).
8 Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario, BCR (Rosario Trade Chamber).
9 The period was one of persistent GDP drops; 1998 was the only year with a positive annual growth rate (3.9), far below that of 1997 (8.1). The following years show the huge contraction of the country’s GDP: −3.4 in 1999; −0.8 in 2000; −4 in 2001 and −10.9 in 2002 (World Bank Open Data).
10 World Bank Open Data [https://datos.bancomundial.org].
11 ‘Deuda de la Administración Central III Trimestre de 2022’. Ministerio de Economía, Argentina. [https:argentina.gob.ar/economia/finanzas/presentaciongraficadeudapublica]
12 ‘Argentine Foreign Trade Statistics’, INDEC.
13 Dirección Nacional de Economía Internacional (Citation2022).
14 Argentina has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, with a loss of nearly eight million hectares of native forests in the last three decades. The bulk of it is concentrated in four provinces of the Gran Chaco Region (Salta, Santiago del Estero, Chaco and Formosa), where indigenous communities are historically settled (REDAF Citation2019).
15 According to Arceo (Citation2017), average gross margins per hectare in 2002–2006 were 29.8 percent higher than those achieved in 1998–2001.
16 ExpoAgro Website.
17 Analysing data for 2012 and 2013, Sabourin et al. estimate that the budget destined to capitalist farming was nearly four times higher than that destined to family farming (2014, 36).
18 Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario, BCR (Rosario Trade Chamber).
19 Law 26.093 launched in 2006 established the mixing of biofuels with fossil fuels, with a ‘cut’ by five percent of biodiesel or bioethanol in gasoil and gasoline. In 2017, the percentage was raised to 10 percent for gasoil and 12 percent for gasoline. A new law, launched in 2021 (No. 27.640), went back to initial ‘cuts’ while allowing the proportion to be lowered to three percent if biofuel production decreases or input prices rise.
20 A report by AGROFY (2014) estimated that more than 10 million hectares in Argentina were affected at present by resistant weeds [https://news.agrofy.com.ar/noticia/145871/vuelta-menos-pensada-anos-siembra-directa/].
21 Estimaciones Agrícolas, Ministerio de Agricultura [https:datosestimaciones.magyp.gob.ar].
22 Information on the total value of national exports by export complex began to be published in 2010 by INDEC. Previous data is partially available in scattered public and private sources, and, most importantly, are not always comparable as different base values are used.
23 This average does not include the year 2002, since information is only available for the first semester of that year. In this period, soy exports accounted for 27.3 percent of total exports by value.
24 Due to the combined effects of high land prices, changing dynamics of capital value creation in frontier areas (where agro-ecological conditions determine significantly lower yields and production entails higher costs, mainly freight costs) and regulations on deforestation.
25 Between 1991 and 2001 exchange rates equated 1 peso (the national currency) to 1 dollar. Thus, loans taken in pesos amounted to the same in dollars. The crumbling of the so-called regime of Convertibilidad in 2001 would have pushed rural indebtedness to astronomic levels, had the transitional government led (2002–2003) by President E. Duhalde, of the Peronist party, not launched specific measures for farmers: the pesification of rural debts.
26 ‘Impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the markets: EU response’, European Council Citation2022.
27 Formed in 2020, the CAA integrates value-chain associations (such as the Asociación Argentina de Girasol (ASAGIR) or ACSOJA) organized around sunflower and soy chains, which gather a wide range of groups, from farmers to industrial processors, exporters, seed and agro-chemical providers, and entities from finance and related services.
28 Consejo Agroindustrial Argentino (Citation2020).
29 Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario, BCR (Rosario Trade Chamber).
30 ‘Las claves del proyecto de ley de renta inesperada’. Diario Pagina12, June 7, 2022.
31 ‘El campo, por un “cambio de rumbo” y contra “la voracidad fiscal”’. DiarioAr, July 13, 2022.
32 Broadcast interview to Gustavo Grobocopatel. May 23, 2022. Available at https://ar.radiocut.fm/audiocut/entrevista-a-gustavo-grobocopatel-9/.
33 Bolsa de Comercio de Rosario, BCR (Rosario Trade Chamber).
34 This results from combining the existing diverse exchange rates, according to the mechanisms (legal and illegal) through which the local currency is converted to dollars. The gaps among them are important, and reveal the worsening of the country’s macro-economic indicators as well as the burden of the ‘external restriction’ on economic growth.
35 Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina [https://boletinoficial.gob.ar].
36 Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina.
37 EDIPO-MATE, Revista Crisis.
38 The normative 21453/76 – titled ‘Exports. New norms for products of agricultural origin’ – was launched during the military dictatorship of 1976–1983 and almost 40 years later is still in force.
39 It is worth pointing out, in addition, that while on 1 April the official exchange rate for exports was set at US$1 = AR$111.125, three months later it had climbed to US$1 = AR$125.41.
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Carla Gras
Carla Gras is a senior researcher for the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research of Argentina (CONICET) and professor in the School of Social Studies at the University of San Martín, Argentina. Her research focuses on the political economy of agrarian change in Argentina, including agrarian classes, agribusiness expansion, and the financialization of farmland and agriculture. She was Vice President of the Latin American Rural Sociology Association (2018–2022) and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Agrarian Change.