摘要：
Argentina aspires to become the global equivalent of Brazil for biodiesel and is well placed to do so. With a
large, efficient and export-focused agricultural sector, Argentina is the world’s third largest exporter of soy and sunflower
oils. Growing global demand and, to a far lesser extent, domestic demand for biofuels is contributing to the expansion of
soy production and processing in Argentina, much of which is centred around the Paraná River. The Argentine biofuels
sector exhibits clustering at both the cultivation and processing levels, but is also strongly dependent on other
relationships both nationally and internationally, including research and development linkages with international
biotechnology firms and the more economically significant soy oil and meal markets. Although the trend of horizontal and
vertical integration is advanced and likely to continue, we argue that clustering, in the sense of geographic proximity,
needs to be seen in the context of the value chain. To date, governance of the soy industry has been characterised by
declining government intervention in production, processing and export processes. In the absence of strong policy, it has
been left to agroindustry to determine the development of the nascent biofuels sector, towards one focused primarily on
the export market and leading to substantial gains for some actors in the value chain and losses for weaker players.
