MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Farming emergency committee meets this week to address extreme drought

Plantations of soybean and corn desperately need rainfall

The Argentine Agriculture Ministry has summoned the Committee on Farming Emergency and anticipated it would engage in “surgical work” in order to reach “all areas of the farming sector” suffering from extreme drought.

Agriculture minister Norberto Yahuar ordered Institutional Affairs secretary Haroldo Lebed to summon the Committee for a meeting next Thursday, in order to carefully analyze every situation, since drought affects every region of Argentina in a different way.

 “Our goal is to keep working after our first meeting in order to evaluate which are the best mechanisms that can be put in place right now. We will engage in surgical work and reach all the affected areas and farmers that need it the most” explained Yahuar.

 “We’re facing a drought with anomalies. There’s been some heavy rain in some places, and no rain at all in others, according to INTA (National Institute for Farming Technology) reports. This means we have to work fast in order to help whoever needs it the most” Yahuar added.

The Ministry of Agriculture will be working along with the INTA in order to visit the areas affected by drought and asses the situation. “We must work together with tangible policies that support farmers,” the minister.

However a farming group has warned that the dry weather hurting soybean and corn crops in Argentina may cause more damage than the 2008-2009 drought that was the worst in 70 years.

The current spell of hot, dry weather covers more area and started earlier in the season than the previous drought, the Argentine Association of Regional Consortia for Agricultural Experimentation said in an e-mailed statement today.

That contradicts the INTA reports which are basically “optimistic” the weather situation will improve. While precipitation levels in December were “way below average,” the drought can “in no way be compared to what happened in 2008,” Carlos Casamiquela, the institute’s head, said in an e-mailed statement.

 Corn and soybean crops are suffering after weeks of low rainfall in Argentina and southern Brazil because of the La Niña weather pattern. Argentina’s soybean output plunged by almost a third to 32 million tons in the 2008-2009 season from 46.2 million tons a year earlier.

Farmers were forecast to produce about 53 million tons of soybeans this season, then-Agriculture Minister Julian Dominguez said Nov. 29.

 The situation is “critical” for corn in parts of Buenos Aires because of the lack of rain and lack of soil moisture, the Agriculture Ministry said in its last weekly crop report.

The corn crop is 88% planted, soybeans are 89% planted and wheat is 91% harvested, according to the report.

“The situation could improve slightly if there is significant rainfall over the next few days,” the ministry said, “though the probability of that phenomenon happening is low or none”.