Abstract

CALIGARIS, Gastón. Recent transformations in labour process at the Pampas agricultural production: limits and potentialities of the 'soybeanization' process. Trab. soc. [online]. 2016, n.27, pp.425-446. ISSN 1514-6871.

This paper examines the recent material transformations that took place in the agrarian labour process in the Pampas in order to provide empirical evidence and elements for the analysis to the existing debate within the agrarian studies regarding the production and social implications of those transformations. For this purpose, an analysis on the so-called biotech revolution in agricultural production is provided. Then, we examine the case of agricultural production in the Pampas. Finally, we briefly consider the implications of these changes for the historical course of agriculture production in general and in the Pampas in particular. The main conclusions arrived at are: a) that the so-called biotech revolution has involved a very limited transformation of natural constraints that characterize agricultural production and, consequently, it is still far from overcome the barriers that historically limited the economic development of this productive sector; b) that the material changes occurred in the labour process related to biotechnology have a generalist character in the Pampas; c) that these transformations are inherently connected with the development of chemical and mechanical aspects of the labour process, such as the extensive and intensive use of pesticides and fertilizers and dissemination of zero tillage technique; d) that the mentioned changes in the process of agricultural labour in the Pampas involved a substantial increase in the minimum scale of production and, on account of this presumably, in the scale of agrarian capital.

Keywords : Agrarian labour process; Biotech revolution; Pesticides; Fertilizers; Zero Tillage.

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