The process of appropriation and concentration of rural land in the Presidencia de la Plaza department (Chaco)

Abstract

The objective is to show the process of land possession in the Presidencia de la Plaza department, a situation similar to that of other departments in the eastern center of the Chaco province (Argentina), analyzing the stratification by area and the relative participation of the different strata in all departmental farms. In its preparation, the population and agricultural censuses carried out were used, as well as bibliographic material and journalistic articles about the studied area, as well as interviews with local inhabitants, being the same part of the author's doctoral research.
The first legal norms favored the concentration of land, promoting the handover of large areas and preventing access to small producers. Towards the end of the 20th century, there was a process of concentration promoted by the change in the production model and, unlike what happened in other regions of the Chaco, where there was a process of concentration of land by extra-provincial capitals, in the Presidencia de la Plaza this did not happen like that, but rather it was a process with the majority local characteristics. The explanation is due to the fact that producers who were in debt and who needed to sell their land in order to resolve that situation, the extra-regional agents found it difficult to acquire because around the property that was offered for sale they had producers who did not want to sell; the parcel distribution prevented extra-regional income, but the mode of production and the structure of the sector were substantially modified compared to that corresponding to the cotton stage; those who could not sell to agribusinesses sold to their neighbors, producing to some extent a process of land concentration that confirms the Mateo effect in this sector.