Agribusiness in grain production, its economic results and its relationship with public policies in a dependent country

Abstract

The agribusiness model, dominant in the production of grains in Argentina since the 1990s, was disseminated by different representative entities of the sector, various publications and numerous academic works. Most of the opinions highlighted its convenience when it comes to lowering costs and improving profitability, but there are not many works that contrast with statistical studies the economic convenience of adopting the model over time and the influence of public policies on profitability. This work seeks to study, through the construction of statistical series on production costs and marketing costs of wheat and soybeans, the evolution of these aspects during the three major stages of economic policy that affected the sector between 1990 and 2017 and analyze their economic results on farms. With these data, it is formulated considerations that seek to deepen the analysis of the central assumptions of agribusiness and the influence of public policies on the sector. The final reflections recall the structurally dependent nature of the Argentine economy, aspect from which the study of the evolution of the production and exports of cereals and oilseeds in recent decades should start. It uses as a statistical base publications of the Buenos Aires Cereal Exchange, by the Institute of Argentine and Latin American Reality Studies (IERAL) and, in particular, the Annual Reports made by Marcos Juárez Branch of the National Institute of Agricultural Technology.