“A green desert”. ‘Pampas’ agriculture (1988-2018): Enlarged grain production and crisis of family farms

Abstract

This paper analyses aspects of a factor that contributes to rural depopulation: the process of economic concentration in the argentine Pampas, which was accelerated in the last thirty years of intense productive progress. First, we proceed to quantify the process, using inequality indicators for the sub-period that has census data (1988-2002) and summarizing the information available for the period 2003-2018. Secondly, an exercise of construction of cost structures (differentiating according to the size of the farms) is carried out, exposing the mechanisms that generate the displacement of ‘chacareras’ farms.