The jury distinguished the businessmen with “entrepreneurial”, innovative spirit because their companies go beyond borders and are “socially responsible”.

The organizers of the competition asked the opinion of 250 businessmen to reach the conclusion and highlight that the profile of the winners is that of people who have “challenged the ’status quo’ and which have had a considerable impact in our society by having a positive contribution to the community”.

But it is clear that not all the Argentineans share this opinion about soy corporations, which were responsible for one of the hardest conflicts of the Kirchner administration.

Soy corporations like Los Grobo have been in the spotlight over reports of tax evasion. In 2008, the Argentine authorities detected that several soy companies had reported less exports as a way to evade taxes applied to the sector since 2007, and which have been harshly questioned by the sector’s chambers of commerce.

The irregularities, which were investigated by the National Office of Commercial and Agriculture Control (ONCCA), also involve seed companies Cargill, Nidera, Bunge Argentina, Toepfer, ADM, Adeco Agropecuaria y Noble.

Los Grobo business group has expanded to Uruguay and Paraguay in the recent years, where it has also become one of the main grain exporters.

Soy expansion in Paraguay has led to the displacement of thousands of peasants who now live in the cities’ outskirts, while in Uruguay the consolidation of the soy model has impacted small scale milk producers, although these are not considerations used by Ernst&Young (E&Y) to measure “social responsibility”.

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