MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine farmers on the verge of “an even greater conflict” warn leaders

Garetto (L) and other leaders managed to control an assembly of 2000 furious farmers

Argentine farmers have again warned that if “urgent solutions” are not forthcoming” it’s almost certain “we’ll be facing an even greater conflict”.

Carlos Garetto president of Coninagro, a strong farmers’ organization warned that “our people are desperate and it took us quite some time and convincing to have them lift the dairy farmers strike”.

Garetto made the remarks in the framework of Argentina’s main agro show in Buenos Aires at the Palermo grounds, an event which for over a century has been an annual impressive display of Argentina’s agriculture potential and subsidiary industries and suppliers.

Garetto brushed aside the latest criticisms from the administration of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner that has been in conflict with the camp for over two years particularly regarding export taxes on oilseeds, cereals, beef and dairy produce.

“The government has been in the past even more offensive and provocative” said Garetto who nevertheless pointed out that the rally with 2.000 farmers “could had evolved quite differently had it been held in the interior of the country”.

“The patient is in serious condition and they (government) are considering what medicines they will be prescribing next week”, said Garetto with certain irony in direct reference to the “needs of the camp”.

Farmers’ representatives are scheduled to meet Argentine government officials this week. A round of talks in the last twelve months only aggravated the deadlock and the mistrust of farmers because of the Kirchner administration policy of ignoring demands and refusing point blank to consider a reduction in export taxes.

“The government is well aware of the issues to address: export taxes, livestock and dairy policies. The best signal would be for government to announce some measures before the meeting so we can begin building confidence”, said Garetto.

Taxes on windfall earnings from agriculture commodities exports contributed to help Argentina recover from the effects of the 2001/02 melting of the economy and default. However as international prices fell many farm activities at the current rate of export taxes have become non-profitable and farmers are going bankrupt and naturally furious.

The Kirchner couple insists that the revenue is needed to keep the level of social spending and employment, and therefore can’t be reduced.

But a long standing drought and the current tax policy could force Argentina to import wheat, beef and milk in the coming 18 months. This is even admitted by government sources and governors of the main agriculture provinces.

Garetto underlined that at the farmers open assembly “we controlled the microphone” and questions were on paper “otherwise nobody knows what could have happened”.

“So far we’ve managed to keep a step ahead of the demands but any moment one of the assemblies could get out of control and we’ll have a stampede”, so if the government does not show up with some solutions “we’re in for a major conflict” of unpredictable consequences.