News
28.12.2009
Argentina. Farmers talk of more protests in 2010
Farmers locked in a fierce dispute with the government over export duties for nearly two years now yesterday warned that if the administration of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner fails to heed their demands they may launch new protests as early as January.
However, they said that the mode of those protests has not yet been defined and that they may not necessarily be a revival of the crippling export sales boycotts or road blockades they have launched in the past.
“We don’t rule out blocking some mills,” Eduardo Buzzi, head of the small farmers association and one of Argentina’s four main farm leaders told reporters.
“Why should we be bringing to a halt a whole nation when the protests may be more focalized? We may go to the gates of some mills and say ‘no flour will be coming out from here.’
“Also, some mills and some exporters who have been making fortunes thanks to measures taken by (Domestic Trade Secretary) Guillermo Moreno should be denounced as accomplices, not just as beneficiaries of Moreno’s policies,” he added.
“If the government closes beef exports and doesn’t solve the problems affecting wheat, there will be trouble from the very start of January.”
Buzzi expressed his hopes that Agriculture Minister Julián Domínguez may “bell the cat, understanding by ‘cat’ a government official who has moustaches.” He was referring to Moreno.
The government has been accusing farmers, together with some industrial and media sectors, of seeking to topple the President ahead of the 2011 presidential election.
Buzzi also questioned the government for bread costing today six pesos per kilo when two years ago it cost two while producers continue to receive the same 40 cents per kilo of wheat.
He was speaking after Carlos Garetto, the head of the Coninagro co-operatives lobby, read a joint statement issued by the liaison board — formed by the leaders of the four main lobbies.
Despite their own claims that it was “not nice to talk about protests during the year-end celebrations,” the document included a paragraph reading that farmers “do not rule out any kind of protest.”
Mario Llambías, head of the CRA lobby said: “The government mistakes are not just an accident.” Buzzi said that the government continued favouring its friends.
Argentina last season harvested 30 percent less than the nearly 100 million tones it harvested in the previous season.
Farmers blame that poor performance mainly on bad government policies, although they had also suffered the consequences of the global crisis, a pre-existent economic crisis at home and an unprecedented drought.
Farmers have been insisting that if no solutions are found, Argentina may be forced to import wheat, beef and milk in the near future. Minister Domínguez this month told the Herald, however, that improved weather and a battery of imminent government measures will not only mean that the country will be saved from having to import those products but that their exports will continue to grow.
Buzzi, asked by the Herald whether the government had consulted with them before launching the promised measures, said that farmers have not been consulted and that, far from that, the government continued failing to honour its word in eliminating export duties for wheat and corn.
Farmers say that the crisis has also led the country to lose five million head of cattle out of its previous national herd of 55 million. However, Moreno said that Argentina’s cattle actually total 75 million and has accused farmers of “hiding” 25 million head of cattle.
The liaison board said that 2009 has been the year of “commitment and participation” and also the year in which framers have been striving to obtain measures to mitigate the effects of the drought.
“There is a long way to go in that field.”
They also highlighted that it was also a year marked by stronger farmer participation in the civic life of the country, one of the world’s breadbaskets.
“As a consequence, political parties who support farmers’ proposals obtained nearly 70 percent of the votes” in the June mid-term vote, something that led to 14 farmers being now Lower House deputies.
The liaison board also described 2009 as the year that saw a strengthening of the unity of the farm lobbies that started in 2008 and that the first result of that unity has been the creation of the Farm Federal Fund, a think tank aimed at promoting the development of the sector.
Farmers also said that the newly recovered independence of powers and the new balance of forces in Congress open a new, hopeful scenario.
“The Kirchners have lost their automatic majority in Congress,” Buzzi said.
Mrs. Kirchner and her husband, former President Néstor Kirchner, who chairs the Peronist party, lost the control they had on both Houses of Congress although in the Senate they continue to be close to having their own quorum.
The document said that farmers are increasingly upset about market interventions by Moreno’s department.
“Speaking frankly, we had thought that on the base of the promises by Agriculture Minister (Domínguez) these frightening practices by government officials were something of the past. Regrettably, reality points to the contrary,” the joint statement said.
It also highlighted mass participation of City residents in a rally that farmers held in the City’s Palermo Park on December 10 to hail the accession of the new legislators.
Farm leaders, as usual, thanked the media for their “support” and for defending freedom of speech, “something that has been under threat in a way that had not been seen before in the country’s recent history.”
Despite having lost the June vote, the Kirchners managed to induce Congress to pass a barrage of legislation that farmers and the opposition at large claim are aimed at supporting a possible re-election bid by Néstor Kirchner.
Buenosairesherald
