November 5, 2009

Argentina's House of Representatives Agricultural Commission suspended debate of a controversial sharecropping bill on Tuesday (November 4) due to failure to reach a quorum.

The bill sharply limiting the amount of land each company can rent and cultivate was sent to the House in August by President Cristina Fernandez, but remained stalled since then.

It has the potential to greatly limit the large seed-pools that dominate farming in the South American agricultural powerhouse.

However, in the latest version of the law, the prohibition on large-scale sharecropping by individual companies has been replaced by steep taxes to discourage the practice, according to farm news website El Enfiteuta.

Sharecropping has exploded in Argentina over the past decade, with many landowners entering contracts with the companies each season for a share of the crop, sitting back and collecting a check at the end of the harvest. An estimated 60 percent of all farmland is cultivated under the scheme each season.

The practice has also spurred a shift to soy monoculture and a failure to rotate crops as is needed to maintain soil health due to the short-term interests of the companies, supporters of the bill charge.