MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine farmers and industry accept dialogue, but also want “deep changes”

Farmers’ leader Buzzi praised the initiative but also warns it was born out of defeat

Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s call to a dialogue with all sectors and “on all issues” received a positive response from farmers and manufactures, but they also requested “deep changes” following the government’s defeat on June 28th mid term election.

Eduardo Buzzi, head of the Argentine Agrarian Federation praised President Cristina Kirchner for the open invitation but also recalled that “the presidential Kirchner couple” is not naturally inclined to look for consensus.

“If it hadn’t been for the electoral defeat at the end of June, there’d be no invitation to dialogue”, underlined Buzzi one of the more relevant protesting farmers’ leaders who have been struggling with the Kirchner administration over export taxes for months.

“That manufacturers, labour and farmers should be called to dialogue, and that limits are imposed on the couple’s financial friends who have made fortunes in recent years, are circumstances demanded by the aftermath of June 28”, added Buzzi.

“It would have been a very positive attitude and would have saved uncertainty to many Argentines if this dialogue attitude had been announced June 29”, insisted Buzzi, who recalled that the Kirchner couple argued on that very day that the defeat had been “minimal” less than two points, an interpretation that infuriated the political spectrum.

“Export taxes must be used as tools to help promote and facilitate planting wheat, corn and sorghum”, added Buzzi.

Nestor Roulet from the Argentine Rural Confederations also praised and “welcomed” the presidential dialogue initiative but also warned that “deep changes are needed to end with the intervention in agriculture markets”.

“We must address many issues, export taxes is one, but so is and far more significant the Office for the Control of Agriculture Prices and the Domestic Trade Secretary which have only helped to distort prices, markets, created frustration and ultimately postponed farmers decisions”, insisted Roulet.

“We must put an end to these methods of implementing economic policies”, he emphasized.

Jose Ignacio De Mendiguren the Argentine Industrial Union CEO said he was “hopeful” about the presidential dialogue invitation.

“We are hopeful because it is essential to begin talking with all sectors and look for consensus”, pointed out De Mendiguren. “This means that many times current or sector claims should be postponed so we can reach an overall agreement”.

The new cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez over the weekend described President Cristina Kirchner’s invitation to dialogue as “an ample and generous proposal”.

“I still don’t have precise instructions, let’s wait for the broad lines on the three issues the president mentioned; electoral, economic and social, and then we’ll have the field more or less set out so we can address them”.

However Aníbal Fernández complained about the dimension that Buenos Aires media has been given to the political future of the always controversial Domestic Trade Secretary Guillermo Moreno. “Let's not make a psychosis out of Moreno”, and added, “let's discuss Moreno's politics but not his personal manners”.

“In no where in this world a Domestic Trade Secretary does what he wants 'per se', he does what he is instructed to do”, Fernández warned.

Meantime Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo, admitted that the government had made “some mistakes” and that “certain products prices have risen above what the INDEC statistics' bureau informed”.

Randazzo also mentioned that “it's very difficult for the INDEC to measure prices for all the products that consumers buy, and probably that's the reason why house wives may think prices are higher than those indicated by the INDEC”.

Asked on whether the Domestic Trade Secretary Moreno will keep his job and remain at government's lines, Randazzo expressed ”it's a decision that the President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the Economy Minister (Amado Boudou) must decide.“

Randazzo also recognized that: ‘This government surely did make mistakes, but there were the typical mistakes committed by those in charge of leading a country”, and added, “that's why beside the virtuous economical system implemented by both kirchnerite administrations, it is obvious that there's still a long way to walk”.

Moreno has been criticized for controversial measures and “unorthodox” persuasion methods, plus his intervention in the INDEC statistics' bureau which claims the opposition is manipulated to favour government’s goals.