By Oskar Laski for AFP.comGauchos 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.
Floral wears the trademark bolero hat but has exchanged the gaucho's baggy bombachos for jeans and made-in-China sneakers.
More threatening to gaucho herders than attire or the advent of All-Terrain Vehicles are the combined advances of soybeans and intensive livestock farming.
Feed lots make gauchos expendable because cattle are confined and fed specific diets in preparation for slaughter, instead of being allowed to graze freely and eating grass.
Cattle penned in Argentina's 15,000 feed lots represent half the beef consumed in the country and it is estimated that within five years.. Read full article
