The fence as a peasant family agricultural production space in Santiago del Estero, Argentina

Abstract

The peasant in Santiago del Estero, has been conceptualized in several texts under different looks. For example, they define it as an agrarian social actor with ways of acting and producing not typically capitalist and depending on the type of agricultural exploitation that occupies (predominantly without defined limits). This social actor is characterized by cultivating in diverse productive units called “fences”, with heterogeneous characteristics in the different regions, typical of the different socioeconomic and agroecological realities of the wide provincial geography. These characteristics constitute the main strategies of social reproduction. The “fence” is an agroecosystem of polyculture, adopted in an ancestral way and carried out in a traditional way by the peasant families, surrounded by natural vegetation characteristic of the semi-arid Chaco and with low or no external application systems. It is a habitual productive practice within the peasant life system, which associates several crops (polyculture) and is carried out in small surface areas generally, in dry conditions; Closed perimetrally, and is what gives rise to its name. In order to generate information on the productive practice of the “fence” within the peasant way of life, forty-one random semi-structured surveys were conducted for peasant families in the departments of Capital, Río Hondo and Guasayán in the province of Santiago Of the Estero. “Fences” are traditional polycultures, which occupy the majority of the family members. These combinations maximize land use, although on some occasions they do not produce surpluses, they ensure selfconsumption that is their main objective. They are made in low areas of rainfed areas, including mainly corn and cucurbitaceae, are planted using specially “criollas” seeds adapted to their agroecological environment, during the period of maximum rainfall.

Keywords: peasant, polyculture, rainfed.

1. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Estación Experimental Agropecuaria (EEA) Santiago del Estero, Jujuy 850,
G4200CQR. Correo electrónico: jorge.eduardo@inta.gob.ar
2. Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero. Av. Belgrano (S) 1912, Santiago del Estero. Correo electrónico: silhema@unse.edu.ar