The drought continues to be the main scourge of argentinian field and although the last rains that followed one another improved the situation of agricultural production in some parts of the country, the lack of water is such and the precipitations have been so heterogeneous and unstable, that many areas of Argentine agriculture still do not know what it is relief.
Drought and now heat: high temperatures also hit the countryside
Highs above 40 degrees are expected for the next few days in various regions of the Pampas. All this happens in the week where the Rosario Stock Exchange lowered the soybean and corn harvest projections
The part most affected by the water crisis occurs in the main productive areas of the country, such as the center and east stripwhat includes Santa Fegood part of Buenos Aires and the provinces of Coast. There the productive disaster is still taking place both in agricultural and livestock farms, with sometimes gruesome scenes of dead animals scattered across the dry fields.
Martin Rapetti He is an agricultural producer from the Corrientes town of Curuzu Cuatia and also develops activity in fields in the vicinity of Gualeguaychú, in Entre Ríos. Although he practices agriculture through a company, defines himself as a farmer who is currently experiencing a difficult situation. “I am in the process of liquidating my rodeo, unfortunately. I am going to try to preserve something because I have genetics that are over 80 years old. I cannot lose that, but it becomes very difficult to keep them, ”he told Infobae.
Endless drought: the field awaits new rains that prevent production from falling further
Soybeans and corn, in the yield definition stage, need water in the coming days to stop production cuts. Rainfall could arrive this Sunday
Rapetti reported that this is the third consecutive year of drought that the region has been suffering and he estimates the lack of water since then at more than 1,000 millimeters, “which means that the streams, rivers and groundwater have contracted and there are no more only problems in the natural watering holes, but also in the perforations, in addition to the fact that we don’t have grass”.
This situation made Rapetti begin to depopulate his fields. “We had to start extracting property from the lots. In my particular case, I usually take 600 heads per year in a normal situation and I have already taken 1,300 heads,” he said, adding that the pregnancy of the cows was 40% during 2022, a low rate, but that this year “I don’t think that I can get even 15%, because the body condition of the cows is very bad. In addition, the teeth of the animals are wearing out, because there is almost no grass on the ground. It’s just dirt, very abrasive. In my field of Curuzú Cuatía there will not be a single bovine. More than 600 hectares without animals”.
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But neither on their farms, especially those of rice, good results will be achieved. In fact, he foresees a large drop in his production due to the fact that he was only able to sow a small portion of land. “We have a water dam that allows us to plant 300 hectares, but the dam was only 20% filled and we can only do 30 hectares, so our production will be 10% of what we used to do,” he said.
Claudio Berrueta He is the president of the Rural Society of one-eyed deer, in the heart of the so-called core zone, the most productive region of Argentine agriculture, but also the most affected by drought. And so much so, that of the last five plantings that he did or tried to do, only one remained standing, at the same time that he does not know how he will feed his cattle in winter.
Berrueta maintained that today his field has a lack of grass and that the farm “is on the edge”. As an aggravating circumstance, the crops that he and his two brothers carried out to generate pastures and fodder reserves failed. “Last year we made Hungarian moha (fodder grass) to make rolls and we had to ‘burn’ them all. Already this year we prepared 30 hectares for sowing, but it also all dried up, because the rains did not come and there was heat above 40 degrees. This means that we are not going to have rolls to feed the animals, which leaves us in a very difficult situation. We will try to make an early oatmeal to try to have food, ”he added.
But previously, things didn’t work out either. In the midst of a disastrous wheat campaign, Berrueta opted for oats, but they had to “let the animals loose on the plots because we couldn’t produce anything, everything was dry. We prepared ourselves for prime corn and we couldn’t plant it either. We were only able to implant a second-rate one when there was a rain in December, which luckily is not in bad condition today”.
But Berrueta, who claims to have never seen a drought of such magnitude, understands that even though he can get fodder reserves, the damage to his herd has already been done. “This situation is going to affect us in the pregnancy of the cows, because we do not have them in good body condition, so we are going to have a decrease in productivity. We had a weaning rate of 83% and this year it will surely drop, although we still don’t know how much.”
Ignacio Kovarsky He is a farmer, veterinarian and tambero from Trenque Lauquen, an area of the Buenos Aires territory where the drought hit livestock and also agriculture. But also, Kovarsky is part of the Board of Directors of the Confederation of Rural Associations of Buenos Aires and La Pampa (Carbap), so he also has a political perspective on the matter and criticism of the official reaction to such a disaster.
“We are having very harsh temperatures and they are a blowtorch because it is 38 or 40 degrees with wind and that tears your crops to pieces. You go to the field at 10 in the morning and you can already see all the wrinkled crops. There is not too much thermal amplitude, the night ends up being 28 degrees”, indicated Kovarsky. In this sense, he remarked that “the day to day of the producer is very hard. Going to the fields and seeing how your crops are dying, knowing that the bills that have to be paid are with your family and the boy who has to go to college… That is very hard. The day to day is very hard. So, in between that, (the government) announces all those empty ads.”
“The exasperating thing is that the cows do not reach the sleeve (to be able to be transferred). The foot-and-mouth disease vaccination is coming and I won’t be able to take them because they don’t reach my sleeve, that is, they die because I don’t have water, it’s desperate”, said Kovarsky and complained that in the face of such a situation there is no adequate response from the politics, according to his criteria: “They are not going to see it (the situation) because they are arguing to see who goes first on the lists, they are seeing how they arrive, they are seeing the pat on the back to see who they push and who reaches there. It costs a lot.”
Regarding the national government in particular, it understands that the aid measures that were announced last week “are part of the Emergency Law. They are things that are already there, they are already stipulated and they dilate them. They create tables to now evaluate the impact of the drought. The truth is that I think It is a cotillion government”.
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