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Deregulation and the loosening of restrictions on big business has been one of the most controversial aspects of Argentine President Mauricio Macri's government. Just like the virtual elimination of limits on foreign exchange operations, the lifting of all import barriers or the reduction or elimination of export taxes, a decree issued last month by Macri seeks to modify the country’s land tenure law. But it is facing strong opposition from campesino organizations, academics and jurists. So who exactly does the law favor?
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In late 2011, former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner enacted the Rural Land Law, which is aimed at limiting foreign ownership of the nation's rural areas. The law designated that only up to 15 percent of Argentine rural areas could be owned by foreign individuals and companies while also preventing the privatization of large bodies of water.
“This law had been recognized by United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as an example for Latin America,” Florencia Gomez, a lawyer specializing in land tenure and the former director of the National Register for Rural Land told teleSUR.
“All of the land protection policies established by the law have now been wiped out, since the decree establishes mechanisms for which foreigners have no limit for land ownership,” says Gomez. With the changes Macri has imposed, she argues, foreigners will be able to buy land from an Argentine company without needing to go through the kind of government controls carried out by the National Register for Rural Land.
Gomez is also a member of the Legal Support Group for Land Access, or GAJAT, a branch of the Center for Public Policies for Socialism, an NGO which brings together academics and experts who seek to fight poverty in Argentina. On their website, the GAJAT strongly criticized not only the decree, but also President Macri's reasons behind it.
They argue that out of the 186 forms presented before the National Register of Rural Land, more than 90 percent were approved, indicating that investment was not hindered by the law, as Macri had argued.
Macri and Foreign Interests
The Argentine Agrarian Federation, the country’s oldest small and medium farmers union, blasted President Macri on this matter. “Macri does not hesitate when it comes to favoring foreign interests. In the meantime, we, the small and medium farmers keep waiting for answers,” they explained in an official communique published by the head of the organization, Omar Príncipe.
“It seems they want to auction off our land, with the farmers in it. We need policies to promote rural development and regional economies, the towns in the countryside. Instead of that, we see a decree that the government itself says seeks to favor foreign investment and agro-industrial businesses. As we have been saying for a while now, the agri-business model is not the model the farmers want,” said Príncipe.
"This decree does nothing but give our natural resources, like water, food and borders in foreign hands. Why do that instead of prioritizing small farmers, who produce 80 percent of our country's food," he added.
Farmers, Jurists Fight Back
Argentina has a land mass of almost 3 million square kilometers. This makes it difficult for campesinos and farmers from different provinces to march to the Plaza de Mayo in the way unions, social movements and human rights organizations have been doing every month since Macri took office in order to show their opposition to the his neoliberal agenda. So legal actions against the decree have so far been the most effective way to fight against the decree.
“The judicial moves that are being carried on have come from different sectors. Since local legislators in provinces like Chubut or Mendoza to campesino organizations in the province of Buenos Aires or an association of lawyers in Buenos Aires city. There are several junctions filed in the judiciary, especially since this is a simple decree which the Constitution establishes cannot change a law,” explains Gómez.
One of the lawyers opposing the decree is Eduardo Barcesat, one of Argentina’s most prestigious jurists. Barcesat rejected the measures, arguing the decree seems to favor some of Macri’s friends like Joe Lewis, an English businessman who owns rural lands in the Patagonia and blocks public access to the Escondido Lake, close to his property.
Just like Macri's reduction of export taxes for soybean has favored the land-owning elite in Argentina, the right-wing Argentine leader has taken yet another step closer to the top 1 percent of international players in agri-businesses at the expense of farmers and local communities.
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