The rural territories usages: food, power, and diet in the Pampas´ agro, at the beginning of the twenty-first century

Los Usos Del Territorio Rural: Alimentos, Poder y Dieta en el Agro Pampeano a Comienzos Del Siglo XXI

In the mid-1990s, Argentina started a transition in agri-food chains that widened the gap between producers and consumers, and the increasing in the decision-making power with intermediaries between them: the big transnational food companies. Therefore, new uses of the territory are implemented, in which the Pampean case means the implementation of industrialized agriculture under the form of monoculture in lands traditionally related to livestock. The outcome is a significant loss of nutrients in food, both by the intensive irrigation involved in its production and in the standardization imposed by the agri-food distribution chains that also include fodder for livestock. There is a nutritional degradation of food in a population where overweight and obesity are important among chronic noncommunicable diseases. This study aims to analyse the explanatory power of the territory to reconstruct these processes of agri-food chains and their impact on the diet.