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| “Costs, particularly taxes, have increased non-stop for farmers”, claims Eduardo Buzzi |
Argentine farmers’ organizations under the
umbrella grouping Liaison Board announced on Tuesday a national strike
cancelling all trade in grains, oilseeds and livestock to protest ‘national
government policies’ against the land reform and tax hike in Buenos Aires
province, among other issues.
The halt in sales will begin at midnight on
Tuesday and end a week later on midnight June 12th. The announcement was made
by the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), Coninagro, the Agrarian Federation of
Argentina (FAA) and the Argentine Rural Confederations, (CRA) which brings together
large landholders to small farmers under the Liaison Board umbrella and was
particularly successful in their confrontation with the Kirchner
administrations over export taxes in 2008.
“Costs, particularly taxes, have increased
non-stop for farmers and thus our incomes have been diminished,” FAA head
Eduardo Buzzi explained in a press conference. “Something is going very wrong
in Argentina's farms, which is why we are sending this wake-up call”, adding
”We are in bad shape and getting worse”.
Ruben Ferrero from CRA said “we don’t want
confrontations, we don’t want to confront the community, we want to teach and
reach out to show the people what is really happening: a year ago dairy farmers
were paid 1.60 Pesos a litre of milk, now that is down to 1.50”
He insisted the purpose of the strike was to
give evidence of the critical situation of the camp overall, underlining that
“the two ends of the food chain (farmers and consumers) are suffering the
most”.
“We are overwhelmed by commercial and
competition difficulties” and the refusal form the national Executive to
receive the farmers “has been one of the factors triggering this strike
situation”.
The difficulties identified include trading
restrictions; limits to exports; destruction of markets and the lack of
profitability in important sectors such as dairy farming, plus the non
consulted decision by the province of Buenos Ares, Argentina’s richest, to
increase soil values and thus significant hikes in land taxes, which is also
extensive for the federal level. The increase in transport costs in such a vast
country is also a motive of protest particularly for the north and south of
Argentina.
The national strike is an extension of the
ban on commercial activities for farm produce in the province of Buenos Aires,
following the approval by the local parliament of the new land values and
taxes.
In the first day of non-trading, recorded
shipments of livestock were minimum and pickets resurfaced in several of
Argentina’s main highways in farming territory.
Buenos Aires province governor Daniel Scioli
told his province farmers he is prepared to review legislation approved but
demands that farmers cease their protests.
Original Article Here
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