16.3

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The United Nations General Assembly, in the 2030 Agenda, urged the adoption of “bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path,” as well as the realization of “the human rights of all people.”¹ In this context, Argentina—positioned in global markets as an agro-exporting nation—faces complex challenges to guarantee access to healthy, diverse, and nutritious food while implementing climate-resilient systems and a sustainable development model. Over the past 30 years, land-use changes linked to the expansion of the agricultural frontier, raw-material extraction, and dynamics associated with neo-extractivism have undermined biodiversity and the structure and functioning of ecosystems, creating difficult scenarios for meeting the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda.² Moreover, the neo-extractivist development model, driven by the commodity boom, fosters land and capital concentration, increasing rural poverty and habitat fragmentation.²

 

Argentina’s Second Nationally Determined Contribution identifies as priority lines of action the “increase in the area cultivated with cereals (wheat and corn) and decrease in the area planted with oilseeds (soybean and sunflower),” and “integrated productive activities and the multiple use of native forests, maintaining their ecological functions and environmental services in perpetuity.”⁴

 

Within this framework, agroecology—understood as a holistic and integrative model—promotes diverse and resilient systems by applying co-participatory principles and elements from production to consumption.³

 

At present, there is only one national regulation that, to some extent, promotes this type of productive approach: Law No. 25,127 on ecological, biological, or organic production, enacted in 2002, with the National Service for Agri-Food Health and Quality (SENASA) as the implementing authority. At the provincial level, Misiones and La Pampa have laws to promote Agroecological Production. At the municipal level, RENAMA is a Network of Municipalities that promote Agroecology, with 25 municipalities across the country implementing programs or activities to foster resilient and diverse food systems in their territories.

 

A province-by-province survey was conducted of trainings, workshops, and seminars offered to public officials, producers, and the general public. Sources consulted included official government dissemination platforms as well as local news platforms and media outlets.

 

Based on this survey, at least 48 agroecology training activities were identified between 2022 and 2025 across 16 provinces. These actions included workshops, courses, training cycles, seminars, fairs, and multisectoral meetings, with participation from more than 74 public institutions and social organizations. These initiatives were led by municipalities, universities, INTA, SAFCI, provincial programs, and grassroots organizations. Only 7 provinces reported the number of people reached by trainings, which ranged from 60 to 500 participants.

 

Notable examples include:

  • Buenos Aires: Agroecology facilitator network (500 participants)

  • Corrientes and Misiones: INCUPO training cycles (private)

  • Mendoza: Workshops coordinated by the National Directorate of Agroecology

  • Chubut: Trainings coordinated between Ciencia Chubut and the Ministry of Environment

  • Tucumán, Salta, Catamarca, and Jujuy: Activation of territorial nodes, regional meetings, and participatory experiences

 

According to official data from the Secretariat of Labor, around 3.3 million people in Argentina are public servants: 66% in provincial governments, 21% in the national government, and 13% in municipalities. With respect to producers, 249,663 EAPs (agricultural establishments) are registered in the National Agricultural Census. The training universe thus totals an estimated 3.5 million people unevenly distributed across the country. The objective of training 35% of this target universe corresponds to roughly 1.2 million people among public officials and agricultural producers. Considering only confirmed data—and applying a conservative estimate of 50 participants per event where explicit figures are missing—the maximum potential reach of these activities is approximately 3,000 people trained or sensitized nationwide. Even taking this figure as an upper bound, progress is significantly limited.

 

In 2022 the Territorial Agroecological Nodes Program (NAT) was launched as a national public policy spearheaded by the National Directorate of Agroecology (DNAe), in coordination with SAAE, RENAMA, INTA, INAFCI, universities, and local governments. Its function was to facilitate territorial institutional coordination, training and organization of regional agroecological networks, and the visibility and support of productive experiences.

 

Nodes were established in Santa Fe, Jujuy, Misiones, Río Negro, among others. However, the program did not receive funding in 2023 and its continuity was interrupted following the dissolution of DNAe, resulting in the loss of a key tool for scaling agroecology territorially. This program could have enabled clear, quantitative tracking of the proposed objective, but with its dissolution the capacity to measure progress has been impaired.

 

Therefore, progress toward achieving the 35% objective is strongly conditioned by the lack of systematization, territorial disparities in training levels, and institutional discontinuity in program development.

 

The interruption of the Territorial Agroecological Nodes Program in 2023 constitutes a significant setback for technical support, territorial coordination, and strategic planning of the agroecological transition at the national scale.

 

¹ UN General Assembly (2030 Agenda).
² See analyses on land-use change and neo-extractivist dynamics and their implications for SDGs.
³ Agroecology as a holistic, co-participatory model.
⁴ Argentina’s Second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).