Agricultural expansion and intensification drive the conversion of natural areas worldwide. This trend will likely continue, particularly in South America, as rising global population, dietary shifts and the increasing importance of biofuels will further accelerate the demand in agricultural products. Yet, it is not clear where and how much production would need to expand and intensify to meet future demands and how policies may help minimizing environmental trade-offs. Particularly the latter requires an understanding of the underlying forces that drive agricultural land-use changes and how they play out given different spatial characteristics of regions. In concert with scenario analyses, this offers a framework for planners and decision makers to explore potential impacts from policies, especially in very dynamic regions. Argentina, where agricultural expansion and intensification result in dramatic conversions of natural areas, is a good example of a dynamic human-environment system. The overarching goal of this thesis was to understand the drivers of agricultural land-use change and to explore future trajectories of land-use change, and how economic and conservation policies may impact them in Argentina’s most important agricultural areas. First, this thesis examines drivers of agricultural land-use changes using a net returns model of agricultural production. Then, this thesis evaluates the effects of economic and conservation policies on future land-use changes and on the connectivity of forests by developing scenarios of future land-use change. The results highlight that agricultural intensification in Argentina is driven by economic interventions, whereas agricultural expansion primarily responds to environmental characteristics and zonation programs. In addition, economic policies may have less power in governing land use changes than previously thought, as results suggest that there are other factors, than profit maximization, influencing land conversions. Future agricultural development would occur in priority areas for conservation in Argentina, but zonation policies, such as the Forest Law, appear to be powerful in limiting potential environmental trade-offs. Results also show that conservation planning does not necessarily need to conflict with economic development in Argentina, since under similar deforestation rates; landscape planning can preserve forest connectivity in the Chaco. Overall, this thesis highlights that a-priory evaluation of potential future effects of economic and conservation policies on land-use change can help informing spatial and conservation planning to steer development pathways towards desired directions in dynamic agricultural regions.