Dynamism of viticultural systems in Mendoza (1988–2008) (original) (raw)

Spatial Change in South American Viticulture

At least since the arrival of the Spanish to South America, grapes have been grown to varying degrees of success throughout the temperate perimeter of the continent. From Buenos Aires to coastal Peru, bodegas (wineries) have been producing wine since the sixteenth century. Today, the wine industries in Chile and Argentina reflect a long process of trial and error and on-going efforts to extract wealth from natural landscapes that seem to otherwise lack conditions conducive to production of other commodities. Today's global wine industry is premised upon the production of uniquely crafted and carefully constructed wines with a mélange of flavors and aromas captured from a location possessing a unique set of geological, hydrological, meteorological and climatological conditions (terroir). Moreover, grape varietals appropriate for each geographic setting must be carefully selected. Oenological expertise determines the capacity of vintners to understand all that influences the creation of the product and South American wine production has only recently achieved world-class status. The histories of wine production in these two states are significantly different. Of course, their locations on opposite sides of the Andes dictate distinctly different hydro-meteorological and ecological settings for human land uses. Although wine-growing regions in Argentina and Chile are similarly arid, similarly dependent upon orographically produced water supplies, and receive similar duration and intensity of sunlight, that is about where their similarity ends in terms of physical setting. Geology, relief, thermal regimes and other natural factors range widely from northern to southern appellations in both countries. Within these different geophysical settings native and immigrant winemakers developed methods to discover and exploit the best terroirs. More than four hundred years of dynamic socio-cultural, technological and economic contexts produced different outcomes for different times. Today's Argentinean and Chilean wines are very different in types and styles and have developed along very different paths. These paths are comprised of several factors that influence and dictate choices and this will be our focus. The goal of our study is to understand the factors that influence and dictate choices about the where, the what, and the how of wine production today in Argentina and Chile and the implications for these factors for the coming decades in the face of global economic and environmental changes.

Study of the Agroecological Transition in Extensive Agriculture in the Semiarid Region of Córdoba, Argentina

AGROFOR

Extensive agriculture in the semi-arid region of Córdoba, Argentina, generated anintense degradation of the biophysical environment, a decrease in ecosystem selfregulationmechanisms, a considerable reduction of agrodiversity and the loss ofassociated environmental services. The physical-biological responses of differentagroecological practices were evaluated for ten years in permanent macroplotslocated in three agricultural systems in order to study the transition towards moresustainable systems, which can be extrapolated to the rural area of central Córdoba.This process generated local information compatible with the farmers’ technology.The results showed that winter cover crops allowed good weed control. Althoughthey affected the soil water content, they did not produce significant differences insummer crop yields and they increased the level of surface organic carbon, thusmitigating the edaphic densification processes caused by no till farming in themedium term. Crop rotation con...

Assessing the cross-scale impact of 50 years of agricultural transformation in Argentina

Field Crops Research, 2011

Given the increasing number of actors related to farming that make decisions at different scales (plot, farm, region, etc.), knowledge about patterns and processes that behave hierarchically is increasingly needed. This is necessary in countries like Argentina, where cultivation expanded at increasing pace during the last 50 years over an area of 1.47 million km 2 . Relying on different sources of existing data, the purpose of this work was to assess the cross-scale dependence of patterns and processes related to the expansion of cultivation in Argentina. The study involved indicators of (i) carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous stocks, (ii) energy productivity, fossil energy consumption, C, N and P balances, water consumption and greenhouse gases fluxes, and (iii) impacts related to pesticide contamination, habitat intervention and soil erosion. Three scales involving (i) regions, (ii) macro-regions and (iii) the whole country were analyzed. Principal Components, Correlation and Regression Analysis were used to identify and quantify meaningful relationships between the different scales. The expansion of annual crops affected C-N-P stocks significantly at the regional scale, whereas it influenced energy and matter flows, and contamination across all scales. This finding explains conflictive responses to land use and management when different scales are considered and shows that scale dependency needs to be considered when their effects on the environment are explored and quantified.

Viticulture and landscape, values for the society in Mendoza, Argentina

The landscape is a perception of the agroecosystem valued as aesthetic, cultural, recreational and touristic, for conservation, among others. It is considered an environmental service and cultural heritage according to the International UN Conference 1972 (Paris, France). The agroecosystem of Mendoza's Northern Oasis creates a landscape with the presence of vineyards framed by the Andes, which is a scenic resource characterized as an environmental cultural service. The disordered process of urban growth in North of Mendoza, threatens the provision of the mentioned service. In this paper, a qualitative and a quantitative assessment aim to characterize the perceptions of urban residents on the vineyards landscape. Two methodologies were applied: expert opinion through focus groups and survey data collection. By working with focus groups, positive impacts of this kind of landscape were recognized. In the 638 surveys made in the urban area of Mendoza, a six landscape images valuation was requested (with a score of 1 to 10, where 10 is the maximum). The highest average scores were for the view of Aconcagua, secondly the agricultural landscape with vineyards and mountains and thirdly another view of vineyards in the North Oasis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Agroecosystems stability in the argentine pampas

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 1986

Consideration of yield stability seems to be especially relevant to agroecosystems that are exposed to environmental perturbations. Improved knowledge about agroecosystem structures and functions and their relationships to the surrounding environment is required. The three main purposes of this work were: (a) to improve knowledge about some ecosystem structures and functions; (b) to evaluate their effects on productivity and yield stability; (c) to consider the design of low cost alternatives to optimize output and minimize risk. By means of a time-sequence analysis, 145 productive periods each with an average duration of 14 consecutive years were considered. Yield oscillation along each time sequence offers an acceptable stability index for the analysed activities. By converting outputs to energy units, the yields and stabilities of different production activities were compared. Results indicate that environmental gradation of the Pampas region affects primary production of herbage and grain more than secondary production of milk and meat, and this effect increases as the environment becomes more restricted. Some combinations of farming activities and energy pathways appear to affect agroecosystem productivity and stability simultaneously. The role of diversification of activities as a tool for agroecosystem stabilization is analysed, and some results are presented. Finally, the perspectives of this agroecological approach to improve system designs and its adaptation to particular regional constraints, are discussed.

Land allocation among the main crops in Argentina: Estimation of price and land elasticities

2016

In the past twenty years, there have been significant changes in land allocation among the main crops in Argentina. The aim of this paper was to analyze how those changes responded to variations in their relative prices in the short-term and quantify their responses. Additionally, it focused on understanding how the hectares devoted to a particular crop responded to changes in the total planted area. For this purpose a system of land allocation equations was estimated for the period 1980-2014. The results showed that the area planted with corn, soybean, sunflower and wheat responded to their own prices, being inelastic in all cases. A statistically significant and negative cross-price elasticity was observed for sunflower and corn. The other cross-price elasticities showed substitution for land use but they were not statistically significant. The land elasticities revealed to be elastic for wheat and inelastic for corn, soybean and sunflowers, while not significant for sorghum.

Argentine Agricultural Structure and Policy Implications

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 1987

This paper uses 1940-80 time-series data and a multiproduct, mulliinput aggregate translog profit fl'lJlelion to estimate the structure of Argentine agricultural tedmology. Estimates of own-price supply elasticity ranged between 0 and 15, and derived demand elasticities were between-1 and-2. Given the authors' estimates of price wedges due to currency overvaluation, trade restrictions, and domestic taxes, the-implications of eliminating any one of these policy-induced wedges would be to• increase: production of the. various agJicultural commodities from as little as 5 percent to as much as l 00 percent.

Diversification, productivity and stability of agroecosystems in the semi-arid pampas of Argentina

Agricultural Systems, 1989

The search for more stable agroecosystems is essential in the face of the risks inherent in farming. Stability may depend on a complementary diversity of livestock and crop activities. Thirty-eight farms of the semi-arid pampas of Argentina were analyzed in order to study the links between diversification, productivity and stability. A time-sequence analysis was used to estimate stability, and simple and multiple regression analyses were employed to evaluate those links. The results were compared with similar relations emerging from two theoretical models. The number of crops and the relative size of the crop area seem to be linked variables that improve the degree of association between diversification and performance of agriculture ecosystems. Diversification appears to be a relevant stabilizing factor, but an excess of diversity may impose an additional management cost without extra benefit. Good correlations were found between the results of the theoretical models and farm data analysis, and the models were useful to elucidate some of the effects of diversification.