From Soy to Agroecology: Agriculture in Dispute

Abstract

 

This article puts in tension the dispute between two antagonistic models of agricultural production in the contemporary agriculture, as well as tradition and relationship with nature: agribusiness and agroecology. We highlight the Argentine and Brazilian cases of soybean production in recent decades, intensified by the “soy boom”, that is, soybean agribusiness. We understand this production as a paradigmatic case, for evidencing the depth of agribusiness and its social, economic and environmental consequences. In opposition to this, we emphasize agroecology as environmentally sustainable, socially and economically harmonious paradigm. Thus, it goes beyond a model of agricultural production, in the construction of good conditions for the reproduction of life in agriculture and in the city. The article is divided into three sections. In the first, we address the fundamentals of forming the pattern of agricultural production that leads to agribusiness. In the second we focus on the promotion of the agribusiness in Argentina and Brazil. In the third, we analyze agroecology as a disruptive process that is in constant tension with that model of agricultural production.