At the time of President Alberto Fernández's announcements about the new measures to combat inflation, 200 producers gathered this morning in San Pedro, Buenos Aires province, and expressed their unease over official policy towards the sector. They proposed to march to the Federal Capital, an immediate stop of marketing and blocking the revenues and expenditures of port terminals. The final word on whether or not to accept these proposals will be given by the Liaison Table, which for the time being cautiously awaits the presidential speech and preparing for the next few days a meeting with national legislators.
Today's meeting was organized by a group of rural people from the north of Buenos Aires. It was held under the slogan “Free or Beggars”, and was attended by the president of the Confederation of Rural Associations of Buenos Aires and La Pampa (CARBAP), Horacio Salaverri, and representatives of the national and provincial legislature, such as Deputy Javier Milei, who expressed his support for the struggle being carried out by the agricultural sector. The presence of the deputy forced the leaders who led the meeting “had no political connotations”.
“It cannot be that the adjustment has to be paid by the private sector, the good people, the people who produce, the people who are breaking their backs all day working to continue sustaining the political caste. You are already banking a tax burden of 60% to sustain a group of immorals. I pledge to accompany them in this battle because it is not only a battle for property rights but also for freedom, but we will end up in a totalitarian system,” the deputy said at the beginning of the producers' meeting.
Today's meeting was the continuation of others that took place throughout this week in areas of Santa Fe and Córdoba, following the announcement of the closure of oil and soybean meal exports. Producers today expressed not only the rejection of official policy, but the absence of a plan to combat inflation and to solve the other problems of the economy, such as exchange rate splitting. In the sector, they already take it for granted that the Government will increase the withholding of soy by-products mentioned above, to subsidize the price of flour that reaches bakeries, and that will mean a lower price they will receive when selling their raw material.
However, without the aforementioned differential, the oil industry loses purchasing power and that caused yesterday an abrupt drop of USD 20 per ton in the price of soybeans 2021/22, which is deepening today Tuesday. The imminent rise in withholdings has already led to significant drops in Argentine soy prices. In addition, analyst Lorena D'Angelo said that by taxing more withholdings, it will mean that the export industry has less theoretical capacity to pay: it would drop from USD 485 per tonne to USD 469; that is, an injury of USD 16 per ton to the producer.
Measures
“The fatigue is general and very great. We are getting used to a permanent change in the rules of the game,” said Pablo Roller, president of the Baradero Rural Society, at the beginning of the assembly.
Alberto del Solar Dorrego, head of La Rural de Rojas, added: “The State has to start lowering taxes, and it continues to maintain a bankrupt country, with poverty and citizens with many needs.” But the leader was critical of the producers' role, because of the low participation in this type of meeting and also in carrying out trade union actions: “Silence is complicit,” he said.
In this regard, the president of the Rural Society of Pergamino, Jorge Josifovich, said at the end of the meeting: “You need a vocation of sacrifice, because without sacrifice there is no benefit.” One of the constants of the assembly was the proposal to initiate actions, but the fear of the leaders and producers is that they will not have high adherence. In this regard, CARBAP's highest authority, Salaverri, commented: “We can't do it alone. We need everyone. And we also need to encourage ordinary citizens, as happened during the conflict over 125 where there was an accompaniment of urban society. But in addition to union, we must have a strategy, with responsibility, judgment and concrete actions.”
Among the trade union actions that were raised for its study were a mobilization to Capital Federal, on a date and place to be defined, an immediate marketing stoppage, accompanied by a blockade on exporting ports, and continuing the claim that the withholdings are “illegal”, compared to the expiry of last December 31 of the powers of the Government to determine the scheme of the tax. And to demand that the Government not only lower the tax pressure, but also the unification of the exchange rate. Two situations that affect the producer's business, in a context of rising international prices, and rising production costs, such as agrochemicals and fertilizers.
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