Much of the mobile labour force that carried out this work settled on the land afterwards. Argentine law says that if people settle on a piece of land for 20 years it becomes theirs, but the legal process of proof is complex. This has been the case in the province of Santiago del Estero, an area that has long been subject to almost feudal rule, with rampant deforestation and the concentration of land in the hands of the few.In this part of the country and coinciding with the emergence of the soya boom, strangers began to approach long-established peasant communities, claiming to own their land.