Modern farming threatens Argentina’s gauchos FEATURE 02/17/2011

Modern farming threatens Argentina’s gauchos

FEATURE

02/17/2011
SAN ANTONIO DE ARECO — Gauchos helped defeat Spanish troops and win Argentina independence in the 19th Century, but the cowboys of lore are no match for today’s soybean boom and factory farms.

“The classic gaucho is disappearing,” Lisandro Floral, a 30-year-old who manages a farm of 3,800 hectares (9,400 acres) deep in the Pampas, told AFP.

Floral has forsaken the horse and the boleadoras — the traditional rope and leather ball sling used by gauchos to capture running cattle or game — in favor of a 4x4 equipped with a satellite positioning system.

Even on the smaller, more traditional ranching properties, signs of “real” gauchos, as painted romantically in the epic poem “Martin Fierro” by Jose Hernandez, are few and far between..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110217com5.html