MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine farmers’ leader calls for “the end to corruption and intolerance”

Biolcati during the opening speech at the Palermo agriculture show

Argentine Rural Society (SRA) head Hugo Biolcati said that Argentine institutions are “deteriorating“ and that ”the Constitution” is no longer in use, as he inaugurated this weekend the 126th annual edition of the camp exhibition at the Palermo Rural pavilion in the City of Buenos Aires.

Biolcati also called for “the end of intolerance and corruption” and to get over the “perverse role of the State which sustains its electoral power and subjects governors and mayors.”

“It is essential to carry out the moral renovation which the country demands. We need politicians with new values” he added at the stage box of Argentina’s main agro-business show.

Surrounded by farmers’ leaders and members of the opposition and no representative from the government of Cristina Fernandez, Biolcati added that “we are privileged witnesses of failed policies” and enumerated some of Argentine farmers complaints: 12 million head of cattle less; wheat and corn planting discouragement; thousands of dairy farms eliminated, over a hundred abattoirs closed and thousands of workers from the meat industry collecting unemployment pay and living off subsidies.

Biolcati added that whole swaths of Argentina are suffering from economic paralysis because to the frosts, droughts and ashes “we must add the apathy from government”. He immediately added it was urgent “to recover institutional quality, end with intolerance, eradicate corruption and guarantee security to all citizens”.

“Faced with a drastic adjustment from the federal government, --which they deny--, but is clearly seen in the asphyxiating municipal, provincial and national fiscal pressure, in the inflation that erodes incomes and livings of all the Argentines, the camp, the farmers demand to be listened”, insisted Biolcati to the applause of the public attending the ceremony.

Biolcati who was one of the four members of the umbrella organization that directed resistance against the Kirchner couple taxes on grains, oilseeds, beef and dairy produce exports, also insinuated he might get involved in politics.

“The time has arrived to awaken to public life. It is the moment to come forward as a protagonist of this very much needed moral renovation that our country and our people are demanding” said the farm leader who with the ceremony ended his period as president of the SRA.

“The time has come to participate, of making and not only of talking, of collaborating from wherever it is possible in the construction of a great new destiny for our great nation”, concluded Biolcati.