El estancamiento del agro argentino y el mercado mundial. De la Gran Depresión a la Segunda Guerra Mundial

The years between the crisis of 1929 and the Second World War are known in Argentinian agrarian historiography as the period of «stagnation». Indeed, the records relating to agricultural production from the late nineteenth century show a slowing down and even reversal in some years. Much previous research into this phenomenon has focused on state policies towards the sector, the behaviour of individual producers, and/or issues of social structure within the agricultural sector. Few authors have attempted to analyse the evolution of Argentina's agricultural sector compared to what was happening in other countries. The aim of this paper is to analyse the global market for agricultural products during a period when cataclysmic world events, such as the Great Depression and the Second World War, render that perspective unavoidable for understanding national economies. Basing our research on the existing literature and statistical data of the International Agricultural Institute in Rome (renamed FAO after the creation of the UN), we will study the evolution of world trade and its relationship to the development of Argentine agriculture. As shown throughout the work, the inclusion of this perspective allows us to observe that the Argentine crisis in agriculture was not peculiar to that country, but a global phenomenon. In fact, the period shows a transformation in the global market for the industry, which particularly affected Argentina, and transformed the country's agricultural production with respect to the preceding years from 1870 to 1930. From the 1960s, the agricultural sector resumed the path of grow, but based on new products (oilseeds) and new partners (Asia).