Digital connectivity in Argentina. Current gaps, public policies, re-regulation, and perspectives

Abstract

In this article, we address the issue of connectivity in rural areas as a condition for access to services, rights, public policies, and the digital transformation of family farming in Argentina. Its objective is to present the current state of rural connectivity; gaps and impacts for family and small-scale farming; as well as the public policies developed and the actors involved in the context of an ongoing market deregulation process. These elements have an impact on rural development processes, on the potential boost of digitalization for small-scale agriculture, as well as on the roots and sociocultural inclusion of these producers and their families. Methodologically, the investigation is based on our own quantitative surveys, the 2022 National Population, Housing, and Household Census, and the 2018 National Agricultural Census. This analysis confirmed the continuing structural problem of internet access in rural areas of our country, especially for small agricultural producers, in the context of fragmented and ambivalent public policies on the part of the national government. We propose to recover the notion of re-regulation (Mestman and Mastrini, 1996) to consider the type of state intervention that favors the private concentration of communication infrastructure and, with it, conditions the sector's development possibilities.