| This dissertation examines the beef industries in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina through material flow accounting techniques in order to determine if they are operating as processes of unequal ecological exchange (UEE). UEE is characterized by the international transfer of environmental degradation and social injustice connected with consumption patterns characteristic of core and increasingly semi-peripheral countries. Observing trends in the production, domestic supply, and the export of beef, I argue that although beef consumption is an important social institution in the cases, evidence suggests beef production in the cases is increasingly supplying international rather than domestic markets. Further, increased beef production is associated with increased environmental degradation and social injustice, particularly in Brazil's Amazon frontier. The analyses of Uruguay and Argentina provide more nuanced accounts, with evidence suggesting optimal environmental conditions coupled with traditional pastoral methods of cattle production limit environmental degradation. However, historical social injustice and conflict associated with cattle in Uruguay and Argentina resemble, though are not quite comparable, to current injustices observable in the Brazilian Amazon. Current trends suggest domestic beef supplies and environmental sustainability are threatened as beef production is increased to satisfy both domestic and global demand. Brazil is currently able to increase both domestic beef supplies as well as exports as it transforms Amazon rainforest into cattle pasture. Uruguay is increasing beef production for export as domestic beef supplies are in decline. In Argentina, protection of domestic supplies is pursued through government intervention, being a primary source of domestic political economic conflict. In all three cases, evidence points toward increased utilization of feed lot beef production methods. Maintaining domestic beef supplies, increasing exports, and the conversion of cattle pasture into soy crops intended for foreign livestock production systems are all drivers toward feedlot production. |
