Abstract

MUNOZ, Roberto. Working conditions in new export fruit productions: the case of blueberries in the province of Entre Ríos, 2002‐2010. Trab. soc. [online]. 2015, n.25, pp.371-386. ISSN 1514-6871.

The production of blueberries, practically unknown in Argentina two decades ago, has developed incipiently during the 1990s and experimented a sensible growth after the fall of the convertibility and the currency devaluation of 2002. Since then, the cultivated surface as well as the volume of production have increased until 2008, placing our country second among the southern hemisphere's exporters, after Chile. However, this process of growth stops since that year, when the sector enters a crisis, entailing the bankruptcy of several companies. On the other hand, it's an activity with high demand of transitory workforce, especially for the harvest period, wich is done manually and lasts only two months. It's often said that the export orientation of the new agricultural productions modifies the rules of corporate behavior towards the workforce, in terms of higher formality of the labour markets. Challenging this ideas, this article intends to analize the recent crisis that the cultivation of blueberries in Argentina is going through and its effects upon the labour conditions of workers employed in the harvest tasks in the province of Entre Rios.

Keywords : Blueberry production; Harvest; Working conditions.

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