Crónica de una crisis anunciada. Una reconstrucción histórica del conflicto por la renta en la fruticultura del Alto Valle de Rí­o Negro en el siglo XXI

Abstract

This article intends to show that the crisis the  fruit production industry is going through is a  structural crisis that has affected the various  actors involved in the activity, according to  their size and market participation, since the  early 70s, when competition for European  markets from other southern hemisphere  countries started becoming more challenging  for Argentina.

The first to be affected were small fruit producers in the Alto Valle who failed to adapt to the shifts in fruit demanded by international markets, which now implied stricter quality requirements and different varieties.

Over the years, given the oligopoly’s persistence in the strategy of maximizing its profit rate at the expense of independent producers’ decapitalization, fruit growing in the Alto Valle underwent a deterioration process in its productive structure regarding the conditions imposed by international markets.  This factor, added to others the article tries to analyze, led to the current state of widespread crises involving all actors.

The process whereby historical structural constraints were built is reconstructed while the strategies undertaken by the actors involved are analyzed. This research is based on previous studies and a review/systematization of secondary sources (academic bibliography, public reports and newspaper articles).