> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Argentina's Limits on Foreign Farmland Returned on 9 October. Three Weeks Later Benetton Sold 900,000 Hectares of Patagonia. - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/benetton-900000-hectares-patagonia-argentina-foreign-land-limits-restored-2026/ - Published: 2026-11-04T02:21:52.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-08T05:21:32.000Z - Description: Argentina's Supreme Court suspended the repeal of the rural land law on 9 October, provisionally restoring limits on foreign ownership including a 1,000 hectare cap. On 2 November the Benetton family's holding company was reported to have sold about 900,000 hectares of Patagonia. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: Argentina, Land, agriculture, Foreign Ownership, Business, Beat: capital-markets-ma **Quick summary:** Argentina's Supreme Court suspended the repeal of the rural land law on 9 October, provisionally restoring limits on foreign ownership including a 1,000 hectare cap. On 2 November the Benetton family's holding company was reported to have sold about 900,000 hectares of Patagonia. The buying entity has not been named, and that is what decides whether the restored limits apply. By LCN Business Desk Argentina spent three years opening its farmland to foreign buyers. On 9 October a court closed it again, for now. Three weeks after that, the best known foreign landholding in the country changed hands. The Supreme Court of Justice, meeting in extraordinary agreement on Friday 9 October, set aside Article 154 of Decree 70/2023 and suspended the repeal of the rural land law. The measure is provisional and turns on a later decision of a court in Bariloche. On 2 November Argentine outlets reported that Edizione, the [Benetton family holding company, had sold](https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa?ref=lacaribenanews.com) Compañía de Tierras Sud Argentino and Ganadera Cóndor, which together hold the family's Argentine land. ## What did the Court actually do? It suspended one article, not the whole decree, and it did so provisionally. Article 154 is the provision of Decree 70/2023 that repealed Law 26.737 and with it four limits on foreign ownership. The Court left that article without effect, which puts the 2011 law back in force while the underlying case runs. Ten days earlier the same Court had gone the other way. [It removed the last judicial obstacle to the repeal on 29 September, ruling that the association challenging it lacked standing](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/argentina-rural-land-foreign-ownership-supreme-court-caribbean-buyers-2026/). The October measure does not overturn that ruling. It suspends the article's effects while a different case is decided. ## What was sold? Two companies, four provinces, and a landholding that has had three owners since 1889. | What changed hands | Detail | | ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------- | | Companies | Compañía de Tierras Sud Argentino, Ganadera Cóndor | | Seller | Edizione, the Benetton family holding company | | Provinces | Southern Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz | | Price | Not disclosed | \*Entities and provinces as reported by El Cronista and Forbes Argentina, 2 November 2026.\* Compañía de Tierras Sud Argentino was founded in 1889 with British capital and bought by Benetton through Edizione in 1991\. The business is sheep and wool. No two accounts of the size of it agree. | Account | Area | Herd | Wool | | --------------------------------------- | ---------------- | ------------------- | ----------------- | | El Cronista, citing Edizione's own data | 920,000 ha | Above 300,000 head | Not given | | Forbes Argentina | Above 900,000 ha | Above 250,000 sheep | 880,000 kg a year | \*Figures as published by each outlet on 2 November 2026.\* Neither set is sourced to the companies, and a third account puts Santa Cruz at 60 per cent of the land and Chubut at 33 per cent without corroboration elsewhere. ## Who bought it? Executives of a listed company, in their own names, according to the outlets that reported it. El Cronista reported that the purchase was made \*"a título personal y no a través de Adecoagro"\*, by the businessmen personally and not through the company. Forbes Argentina's account says the buyers are \*"los socios y directores de la compañía agroindustrial"\*, led by Mariano Bosch, Adecoagro's founder and chief executive, who is to become president of both acquired companies. Agustín Dranovsky stays on as chief executive of Compañía de Tierras Sud Argentino. No account on the public record names the legal entity that made the purchase, or where it is incorporated. **No account has named the entity that made the purchase, and without it the restored limits cannot be applied either way.** ## Why does the buyer's identity decide whether the limits apply? Because the law that came back reaches only foreign holders. | The limit, now provisionally back | What it does | | --------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1,000 hectares | Caps any one foreign holder in the core area | | 15 per cent | National ceiling on foreign ownership of rural land | | 30 per cent | Sub-ceiling for holders of any one nationality | | Water prohibition | Bars foreign ownership of land containing or adjacent to large permanent bodies of water | \*Limits of Law 26.737, repealed by Article 154 and provisionally restored by the Court on 9 October.\* An Argentine buyer is outside all four. A foreign one acquiring a holding of this size would sit a long way outside a 1,000 hectare cap. The transaction reduces foreign ownership of Argentine rural land if the buyers are Argentine and leaves it roughly where it was if they are not, and the published record does not say which. A separate rule is unaffected either way. Decree-Law 15385/1944 was never repealed, and land within 150 kilometres of a land border or 50 kilometres of a maritime one still requires prior approval from the Ministry of the Interior for a foreign buyer, with the Province of Buenos Aires the only exemption. Santa Cruz and Chubut carry both a Chilean border and an Atlantic coast. ## Is Adecoagro itself the buyer? Its own filings say it owns a fraction of what was sold. Adecoagro S.A. is incorporated in Luxembourg at 28 Boulevard F.W. Raiffeisen and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as AGRO. In a filing to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission dated 26 October it describes itself as owning 210.4 thousand hectares of farmland across Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The land reported sold is more than four times that, in one country. Adecoagro has furnished nothing to the Commission about the transaction; the 26 October filing is a dividend announcement and is the most recent on its file. Forbes Argentina's headline credits the company with the purchase while its own opening sentence attributes it to the partners and directors. The distinction is not presentational. Adecoagro is a foreign company in Argentine law and its executives, if Argentine, are not. ## Where does the decree stand in Congress? The Senate rejected it in March 2024 and the Chamber of Deputies has not, so it stands. Under Law 26.122 a decree of necessity and urgency falls only if both chambers reject it, and the Senate's vote on 14 March 2024 was 42 to 25. A special session called for 15 October to do so collapsed before it began. [As this newspaper reported when the vote was first circulating](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/argentina-dnu-70-deputies-vote-farmland-decree-senate-rejected-2026/), the congressional position was further advanced than the court case. On the day, 121 deputies took their seats against the 129 needed, eight short, and the presiding officer declared the convocation fallen. So the decree survives in Congress while its land article is suspended in court, and the regime that governs a foreign buyer today rests on a provisional measure rather than on a settled law. ## What should a buyer outside Argentina take from this? That the window described in September is closed for now, and on terms that can move again. A Caribbean or other foreign purchaser reading that Argentina had lifted every limit was reading something true on 29 September and superseded on 9 October. The limits are back provisionally, the decree is unrejected, a Bariloche court holds the next step, and the largest recent transaction has disclosed neither its price nor its buying entity. ## What is not established? The buyer, the price, and where the measure goes next. The acquiring entity and its place of incorporation are not on the public record, and neither is the consideration. Whether the parties sought or needed approval under the border security regime is not stated anywhere in the reporting. Whether a further session of the Chamber of Deputies was held after 15 October is not established here, nor is the current status of a separate bill reported to carry a chapter repealing Article 154\. No statement from Edizione on the transaction is on the public record, and the figures for area, herd and wool come from the outlets named rather than from the companies. ### The entities - **Compañía de Tierras Sud Argentino** is the Argentine land company founded in 1889 with British capital, bought by Benetton in 1991, and reported sold on 2 November 2026. - **Ganadera Cóndor** is the second company reported sold in the same transaction. - **Edizione** is the Benetton family holding company that owned both. - **Adecoagro S.A.** is the Luxembourg-incorporated, New York listed agricultural company whose partners and directors are reported to have bought personally, and which owns 210.4 thousand hectares of its own. - **Mariano Bosch** is Adecoagro's founder and chief executive, named as leading the buying group and as incoming president of both acquired companies. - **Law 26.737** is Argentina's 2011 rural land law, repealed by Article 154 of Decree 70/2023 and provisionally restored on 9 October 2026. - **Decree 70/2023** is the decree of necessity and urgency whose Article 154 carried that repeal. - **Decree-Law 15385/1944** is the border security zone regime, never repealed, requiring approval for foreign purchases within 150 kilometres of a land border or 50 kilometres of a maritime one. ### What the title card says - Headline: Argentina's limits on foreign farmland returned on 9 October, and three weeks later Benetton sold 900,000 hectares of Patagonia. - Date the Supreme Court suspended Article 154 and restored the rural land law: 9 October 2026. - Area reported sold: 900,000 to 920,000 hectares. - Hectares Adecoagro says it owns across Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay: 210.4 thousand. - Cap on any one foreign holder in the core area under the restored law: 1,000 hectares. - Deputies present at the session called to reject the decree on 15 October, against 129 needed: 121. - Price disclosed: none. - Buying entity named on the public record: none. ## Frequently Asked Questions Who bought Benetton's land in Argentina? Argentine outlets reported on 2 November 2026 that the buyers are partners and directors of Adecoagro acting personally rather than the company, led by its founder and chief executive Mariano Bosch. No account names the legal entity that made the purchase or where it is incorporated. How much land was sold? Between 900,000 and 920,000 hectares, depending on the account, across southern Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Chubut and Santa Cruz. The companies sold are Compañía de Tierras Sud Argentino and Ganadera Cóndor. No price has been disclosed. Can foreigners still buy farmland in Argentina? Not on the terms available in September. The Supreme Court suspended Article 154 of Decree 70/2023 on 9 October 2026, provisionally restoring Law 26.737 and its limits, including a 1,000 hectare cap on any one foreign holder in the core area. The measure is provisional and depends on a later decision of a court in Bariloche. Does the border rule still apply? Yes, and it was never part of the dispute. Decree-Law 15385/1944 requires a foreign buyer of land within 150 kilometres of a land border, or 50 kilometres of a maritime one, to obtain prior approval from Argentina's Ministry of the Interior. Only the Province of Buenos Aires is exempt. Has Congress rejected the decree? Only one chamber. The Senate rejected Decree 70/2023 on 14 March 2024 by 42 votes to 25, and under Law 26.122 a decree falls only if both chambers reject it. A special session of the Chamber of Deputies called for 15 October 2026 collapsed when 121 deputies attended against the 129 needed.