Argentina's Worst Drought In More Than 50 Years Pressures Economy, Politicians, Farmers - NYT

[hatrack]

BUENOS AIRES — Cows are dying by the thousands in the baking sun, and crops are being lost before their seeds even break the soil. Argentina’s worst drought in more than 50 years is magnifying the country’s chances of suffering another economic crisis, and the lost farming revenue will complicate the government’s efforts to meet more than $18 billion in debt obligations this year, economists said.

With congressional elections now only eight months away, the drought is also putting political heat on the country’s first couple, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Néstor Kirchner, the former president. It comes as Argentina is struggling to contain double-digit inflation and growing unemployment.

Mrs. Kirchner late last month declared an “agricultural state of emergency” and said the government would give some farmers and ranchers a one-year reprieve on paying provincial taxes on produce and livestock that had been affected by the drought.

EDIT

Economists expect overall production in Argentina’s agriculture and livestock industry to fall by at least 15 percent this season compared with last year, and for state revenues from the industry to fall by more than $5.5 billion. The drought has been especially devastating to the wheat and corn crops and to cattle production. Argentine ranchers have lost an estimated 1.5 million head of cattle, said Ernesto Ambrosetti, the chief economist at the Institute of Economic Studies at the Argentine Rural Society. Ricardo Theill, a dairy farmer in Ceres, in Santa Fe Province, told a radio station last week that he lost 106 cows in three hours when they abandoned their parched pasture, gorged on soybean plants and died from indigestion.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/world/americas/21argentina.html?_r=1

[Common Sense Party]

1. Save the cows!

Best beef and leather in the world.

Argentina, te extraño.