Rural Outmigration and Land Use Changes in the High Monte of Northwest Argentina

Rural outmigration drives political, economic, and environmental change. Educational, socioeconomic, and cultural factors foster youth outmigration, influencing changes in land use patterns through either intensification or deintensification of agriculture. This study describes demographic changes and migration patterns at regional and local scales in the High Monte of northwest Argentina and the associated changes in socioeconomic dynamics. Based on data from the National Population Census and National Agricultural Census, we analyzed (1) migratory movements within and outside of the High Monte of northwest Argentina, (2) changes in heads of livestock and crop production area, and (3) by evaluating population, changes at a more local scale, including whether these changes differ between areas of high and those of low population density and with different extents of cultivated area. We found that people tend to remain within northwest Argentina but are moving toward emerging cities in valleys, departments, and province capitals. At a local scale, people are abandoning mountainous land that is unsuitable for agricultural production, whereas populated centers and valley areas with suitable land for agriculture are growing. Heads of livestock decreased in most departments, and cultivated areas decreased in half of the departments and increased in the other half. Our study suggests that emerging cities are becoming new hotspots, retaining population at the regional level while promoting the abandonment of marginal, mountainous areas at the local level, in the context of a general reduction in livestock activity in most departments. This could potentially be expressed through differential patterns of land use deintensification and intensification that are linked to demographic changes.