Proliferation of the Corporate Agro-Industrial Model in Latin America

Abstract

This study is derived from a group research project that explores the social implications of scientific work as it is linked to the larger processes of production and the exercise of democracy. In this context, the present work seeks to contribute to this general theme from the vantage point of observing agricultural production in the region of Latin America.This will empower us to learn more about the effects, the larger potential, and the socioeconomic, politi-cal and environmental challenges that science and technology represent as applied in the agricultural sector. A broad overview will reflect upon the widespread and heterogeneous penetration of the Corporate Agro-industrial Model (cam) in all of its complexity and short falls throughout Latin America. It quickly becomes apparent thatthe technological paradigm that sustains this model has failed to adequately respond to the problems of social inequality, exclusion, and poverty that typifythe region. Our examination can help identify the model’s fissures, structural flaws, limits and excesses, as well as the possibilities it opens for organized social political action at the supranational level. It is a veritable collation of tensions that occurs, both at the outset as well as throughout its development,in which conflicts eventually result that go well beyond rural areas. Both capitalist and peasant economies coexist across the region of Latin America.