2024-04-06 17:14:00
Producers continue to demand tax relief and incentives that will allow them to carry out a new wheat campaign, which will begin mostly in June with the sowing of the cereal nationwide. Furthermore, according to the farmers’ point of view, Private investment is seriously conditioned by the increase of up to 30% year-on-year in fertilizers such as urea and the drop reported in the international price of the crop.
For this reason, Cordoba producers such as Gabriel de Raedemaekerformer vice president of Argentine Rural Confederations (CRA), explained in dialogue with the program “Country Air”which is issued by radius Profilethe need to have economic conditions that stimulate the decision of the wheat producer to advance with the investment not only in the crop but also in fertilizers, necessary to consolidate the yields obtained.
“The price of urea is 30% more expensive than in 2023, this is added to the fall in wheat prices and a greater fiscal pressure, with an increase in production costs. All this leaves the wheat producer with a cost equation that completely eats up the potential agricultural income: thus the planting intention, which must be done in weeks, is dissipated,” explained De Raedemaeker.
For this reason, the ruralist from Córdoba considered that “A clear signal is needed to eliminate export duties and also offer the necessary conditions to the countryside to express its potential” and also stated that “today in agricultural activity we are having a significant inflation in dollars, through the increase in the price of agricultural inputs.”
“Thus, the Country Tax must be eliminated, as well as export duties. And also accelerate the elimination of the stocks and the exchange gap. The announcement should now be made to allow the farmer to decide to invest. But today, as the tax conditions are, wheat cultivation does not close in Córdoba,” said De Raedemaeker.
Along these lines, he stated that “the value of wheat fell 50 dollars per ton in the last year and this added to the fact that the fiscal pressure does not decrease. Furthermore, we still have an exchange rate for the purchase of inputs that strongly punishes us with the Country Tax and without exchange rate unification, we still have a gap that distorts us. By maintaining export rights, all this does not accompany the planting intention that the producer could have.”
“Córdoba could and should cover 2 million hectares with wheat sowing, and could almost supply Argentina’s internal consumption, but for all this, it seems to me that we are going to be very far from this figure,” he expressed.
Also regarding the prices offered for agricultural inputs, De Raedemaeker noted the “concern” that the agricultural sector has to consolidate the purchase of technology to increase production, such is the role that fertilizers have in local production, and commented that “ Wheat, in addition to being a financial tool, has a very strong importance in the semi-arid zone of the center of the country, such as Córdoba, since it is a crop that offers sustainability to local agricultural production in direct sowing and requires a significant supply of fertilizers. ”.
Thick harvest
To face the wheat campaign, beyond the sector’s demands to lower the tax burden, De Rademaeker indicated that in the fields of Córdoba “we are still waiting for the El Niño rains to arrive, since we are very complicated with the humidity reserves in the soils, and it is possible that we will have a third productive failure in the harvest of coarse grains: the first numbers of the harvested lots speak of that.”
“Faced with an economic failure, generated by a productive failure, we are in Córdoba facing the urgent need for rain. No upload of humidity profiles for the third consecutive year. In that context, the adjustment in wheat should be necessary and almost manual, to recover from how bad the thick harvest leaves us again,” he said.
“Last year we had a significant drop in surface area and also grain production in the Mediterranean region. And this year something similar is expected, unless price corrections or lower taxes appear, such as removal of withholdings,” said De Rademaeker.
Resignations in Agriculture
De Rademaeker stated that ruralism was “very surprised” by the departure from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of officials who collaborated with Fernando Vilella, such as Pedro Vigneau and Germán Di Bella. It seems that “they never managed to gain a foothold in this power structure of the government of President Javier Milei,” he said.
He considered that the Agriculture and Livestock area today occupies “a third” category hierarchy rank because “the area plays a secretarial role, which indicates the importance given to the sector at this time, knowing that it contributes seven of each ten dollars that enter the country as foreign currency.”
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