Contenu du sommaire : Les formes d'organisation entrepreneuriale de la production agricole en Amérique latine

Looking for place-related resources such as land, agricultural firms set up in either central or peripheral, as far as new processes are concerned, rural areas new forms of work organization, in order to achieve intensification and specialization. The various types of firms studied in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay provide a unique point of observation of the globalization of agriculture and of rural spaces.

The aim of this article is to analyze the economic impacts on the location and the density of the production network resulting of the structural changes in activities that are mainly based on land exploitation and subsequent industrial chains. While specific reference to the Argentine case, these dynamics can be extended to productions of Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and partly Brazil. The changes in the production structure are part of the technological paradigm shift experienced by the agricultural and livestock production in recent decades. Its manifestations are the verticalization of production (and the spread of outsourcing of activities), the existence of new operators (agricultural companies, contractors, suppliers of inputs, etc.) and the dominant figure dissociation between agricultural enterprises and the owner of the land. The new mode of production organization's epicenter to the figure of dynamic professional employer as a manager/organizer of several farms throughout the territory, which applies a high percentage of productive factors that he contracts in the market. All these changes resulted in different business strategies with impact on the location of activities.

The analysis of social processes that shape, in rural areas, the formation of the agribusiness in Brazil can not be separated from that of the instruments and mechanisms of public policy and that of their implementation. Although state intervention has changed over time (from the credit policy to agriculture in the 1970s to the renegotiation of farm debt in the late 1990s and early 2000s), it is important to explain the government action to identify the basis supporting the agribusiness's expansion. They are part of what we call « agribusiness's society » which includes the related regional social configurations and that is emblematic of the transformation process that occurs in the new « agricultural frontier », to which these public policies are destined. This article gives an analysis of financing policies directed towards agribusiness, especially from the 2000s, with the aim to highlight the products, producers and geographical areas that have received those resources, as well as the bodies in charge of their application in the national context.

The production of sugarcane has increased significantly over the past decade in Brazil. Due to a favorable international environment in commodity markets and on a background of environmental and energy crisis, sucro-energy sector is undergoing substantial investment. Production volumes are up, the area under cultivation has nearly doubled in just ten years. From a geographical point of view, the intensification of production methods is remarkable in the traditional areas as well as the spatial expansion of the cane to areas previously devoted to other activities. The Dourados region in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, is the scene of the advance of the cane agricultural frontier. Apart from changes in land use, this process creates tensions or conflicts in addition to existing ones, which are to be linked with the globalization process. The article attempts to link these phenomena and to show how these industries localise and act in the local spaces.