Rents, Actors, and the Expansion of Commodity Frontiers in the Gran Chaco
Rents, Actors, and the Expansion of Commodity Frontiers in the Gran Chaco
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DOI：
10.1080/24694452.2017.1360761
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发表时间：
2018-01-01
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Meyfroidt, Patrick
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
de Waroux, Yann le Polain;Baumann, Matthias;Meyfroidt, Patrick
过去40年的边疆扩张理论主要是由对国家驱动的小农殖民的研究形成的。然而，现代农业前沿越来越多地受到资本化的公司农业的推动，几乎没有政府的直接干预。当代边境的扩张被解释为存在空间上不同的“异常”租金，这可能是由廉价的土地和劳动力、技术创新、缺乏监管和各种其他激励因素造成的。在这里，我们认为，理解这些边界的动态需要考虑行为者获取此类租金的不同能力，这取决于他们获得生产要素及其信息、偏好和代理的机会。我们提出了一个新的概念框架，借鉴了新古典主义经济学和政治经济学，并将其应用于南美大查科地区，这是一个大豆和牛生产的森林砍伐热点地区。我们根据卫星数据、实地访谈和专家知识，将该地区划分为一系列不同的边境，以审查这些边境地区农业扩张的驱动力和参与者。我们表明，查科的边疆扩张对新农业技术、基础设施和不断上涨的生产者价格创造的租金做出了反应，但边疆动态受到参与者捕获或影响这些租金的能力的强烈影响。因此，我们的发现突显出，理解当代商品边界需要分析特定行为者群体的机构塑造土地使用结果的新颖方式。
Theories of frontier expansion in the last four decades have been mostly shaped by studies of state-driven smallholder colonization. Modern-day agricultural frontiers, however, are increasingly driven by capitalized corporate agriculture operating with little direct government intervention. The expansion of contemporary frontiers has been explained by the existence of spatially heterogeneous "abnormal" rents, which can be caused by cheap land and labor, technological innovation, lack of regulations, and a variety of other incentives. Here, we argue that understanding the dynamics of these frontiers requires considering the differential ability of actors to capture such rents, which depends on their access to production factors and their information, preferences, and agency. We propose a new conceptual framework drawing on neoclassical economics and political economy, which we apply to the South American Gran Chaco, a hot spot of deforestation for soy and cattle production. We divide the region into a set of distinct frontiers based on satellite data, field interviews, and expert knowledge, to review the drivers and actors of agricultural expansion in these frontiers. We show that frontier expansion in the Chaco responded to the rents created by new agricultural technologies, infrastructure, and rising producer prices but that the frontier dynamics were strongly influenced by actors' abilities to capture or influence these rents. Our findings thus highlight that understanding contemporary commodity frontiers requires analyzing the novel ways by which the agency of particular groups of actors shapes land-use outcomes.