Territorial Facets of Changes in the Agro-alimentary System of the Pampas

Abstract

The article examines the main apporaches in the theoretical discussion about the agrofood systemss transformation process and its impact on the evolution of their related urban sites. These contributions suggest a new framework for the analyisis of the urban-rural linkage. This theoretical discussion settles the point of departure for an analyisis of the recent transformation process experienced by the "pampeano" agrofood system wich, in turn, have impacted on the evolution of the rural environment and its linkages with its related urban structures. The rural system and the rural-urban links at the pampean region had been critically influenced by recent changes in the regional agrofood sector. The declining intensity of local technical and market interdependencies, the increased depopulation in small agrarian districts, the high mortality of small food processing firms and the diffusion of new forms of integration mechanisms between the food manufacturing and the retailing sector wich stresses social polarization of urban structure. A set of trends that seem to weaken territorial articulations constructed during previous expansion phases of the area.