Abstract

Multiple studies have shown an alarming level of soil degradation in Chile, a fundamental pillar of biodiversity and food production. This recognition has led in recent decades to the implementation of soil governance programs, through which this situation can begin to be reversed. Adopting an analytical framework from the social studies of soils, this article analyzes the main public instrument generated for this purpose, the “Incentive System for the Recovery of Degraded Soils” (SIRSD-S). By following its history and implementation in the Atacama Region, the article presents SIRSD-S as framed within a productivism problematization. From this perspective, agricultural soils tend to be understood mainly as an inert infrastructure for food and fodder production, especially under a monoculture export-oriented agro-industrial model. As a result, SIRSD-S tends to give primacy to action plans focused on the introduction of singular technical amendments focused on maintaining the current productivity of soils. By neglecting any recognition of soils as part of complex socio-ecologies, these measures do not really deal with the conditions that led to the degradation of these soils. In the conclusions we are going to explore some changes that could really help SIRSD-S to achieve its original object, to reduce the degradation levels on Chilean agricultural soils.