Argentina for sale? Controversy after the Miley Decree that abolished land purchase restrictions for foreigners
(CNN Spanish) — The Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) issued by Argentine President Javier Milli on December 21 included the repeal of the so-called Land Law, which established limits on the purchase and possession of land under the argument of national sovereignty. Land by foreigners. This comes as judicial representations continue against this megadecree, one of which has managed to block the chapter referring to labor reforms with an injunction.
Law 26,737 for the Protection of the National Domain on Property, Possession or Tenure of Rural Lands was promulgated in December 2011 at the request of then President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. It establishes that foreigners cannot own more than 15% of the land of a country, province or municipality. But, in addition, since Argentina is an agricultural-exporting country, with soybeans as the main crop and export in recent decades, it prohibited them from owning more than a thousand hectares of the nation’s most productive and fertile land, the so-called core zone (north of Buenos Aires province and south of the provinces of Santa Fe and Córdoba) or their equivalents in the rest of the provinces.
The main point of the law is in Article 10, which prohibits foreigners from “owning or occupying” properties “which are on the banks of large and permanent water bodies” or “located in border security zones”. Now, with its abolition, certain natural resources, such as sources of rivers or lakes or areas considered vulnerable, can be sold to foreign people or capital without major restrictions.
However, in reality, these situations have occurred even when the law was in force. The most famous case, though not the only one, is that of British businessman Joe Lewis, owner of the Tottenham club of the British Premier League. According to a report by the University of Rio Negro and the Provincial Legislature, it is over 11,000 hectares in the province of Patagonia, near the cities of Bariloche and El Bolson.
The businessman also has a long legal dispute, which is alleged to limit public access to Lake Escondido, which borders his land. Amid the public resonance the case acquired, then-President Mauricio Macri denied the accusation and came to the defense of whom he described as his “friend”.
Macri said in January 2017 that there is better access to the lake (Escondido) than before Joe Lewis bought the property. A comment for which he received a lot of criticism.
How much land is in the hands of foreigners?
The now repealed law also created a National Registry of Rural Lands, which as of its latest update (April 2022) establishes that no province exceeds a limit of 15% of land ownership in the hands of foreigners. According to the report, Salta is the closest with a maximum of 11.56%. They are followed by Misiones (11.07%), San Juan (10.48%), Corrientes (9.87%), Mendoza (9.11%), Catamarca (8.64%) and Santa Cruz (8.11%).
Foreignization of Land in Argentina (courtesy Argentina.gob.ar)
It also points out that Americans are the foreigners who own the most land in the country: more than 2.7 million hectares, followed by Italians with just over 2 million and Spaniards with just over 1.8 million.
However, this data may not be complete, thanks to a change in the law made by Macri by decree in 2016, which among other things removed the rules of information that had to be submitted to the national registry and allowed foreign companies to be considered national. According to the shareholding structure they present.
Distribution of Land Ownership in Argentina by Nationality. (Courtesy Argentina.gob,ar)
For and against
“The best thing that can happen is a free market and things are happening with complete freedom,” said Nicolás Pino, president of the Rural Society of Argentina, in an interview with Radio Meter. “There are fields here that cost 8, 10, 15 thousand dollars per hectare, and the quality of the same field in the United States is double or triple the price,” he added.
On the contrary, another rural leader, Carlos Achetoni, president of the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA), believed that there was “no need” to repeal the land law because the 15% limit is far from what exists today,” he declared to Radio Continental.
“The uncontrolled opening of land purchases to foreigners is an attack on the possibility of survival for many Argentinians who were building their homelands and, along the way, were melting after the pressure of sanctions and taxes. Argentina’s hard times. Today “Uncontrolled opening is a little dangerous to me. seems,” he said.
For her part, Magdalena Odarda, the Peronist representative of Rio Negro province, along with several environmental, indigenous, union and political leaders presented an amparo against Article 154 of the DNU, which nullifies the law, questioning its constitutionality and requesting its repeal. is As in some other submissions against other articles or the whole of this measure laid down by Millay, the decision is in the hands of justice.
