Migrations, Work and Agricultural Global Chains

Abstract

Fresh horticulture in Argentina has historically been produced by immigrant labor, from European countries during the first decades of the twentieth century or from borderline countries at the beginning of XXI century. At present, it could be argued that the migratory flow from Bolivia quasi hegemonizes not only the supply of labor in this production in almost all the green belts of the country, but also in some key niches dominates the most important links the food chain. Since the late twentieth and early twenty-first Bolivian immigrants, drawing on the tradition of European immigration, are now exerting dominance in the production and marketing of fresh horticulture. While other provinces have recorded the early incorporation of Bolivian immigrants in horticulture at the interior of the country before the ‘80s, when it detects its arrival in Buenos Aires, it can be argued that from the latter date the phenomenon is widespread and growing, and in recent years, particularly from the economic-social crisis of 2002, we can see a strong development of these families on the commercial link in the food chain of this production. In this paper we attempt to describe the historical process that allowed the occurrence of the phenomenon based on the formation of ethnic enclaves in different territories horticultural Argentina.