President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Addresses Nation on Soyification of Agriculture

In the midst of a standoff with soy farmers, who took to the street after she announced a tax hike for Argentina's soy production to 45% of export revenues, President Cristina Kirchner spoke to the nation to outline the reasons for the recent soytax measures, which include, curbing the unsustainable trends of GMO soy production, balancing farm production to cover local consumption needs in staple crops and produce such as meat, poultry, wheat and corn, instead of favoring export markets, slowing irrational deforestation and redistributing wealth.

On March 11 th , the government handed down a tax affecting soy and sunflower oil. Soon after, the agro sector went into turmoil. A handful of farmers, driving SUVs and large crop machinery, blocked off key roads leading into some of the country's principle produce markets. This immediately choked off produce supply and caused shortages on principal supermarkets shelves across the country.

Soy farmers claimed discrimination and demanded a reversal of policy. However, Cristina stands firmly behind the new policy and came back with a harsh speech, revealing cold hard statistics about the imbalances and irrationality of GMO soy production in an effort to show that the protest is the cry of the wealthy, who have been making a quick buck from surging global commodity prices.

Four thousand farmers account for 50% of production. Twenty percent of soy farmers own 80% of production, while half of that production is owned by only 2% of farmers. Farms that produce soy use minimal farm hands generating little employment. One or two helpers work a soy farm, while for example, a small bread business might employ 10 or 12 people.

And if you look at profit margins of the current unharvested crop with respect to anticipated harvest price at the time of planting, at current prices (which have since soared) farmers will make 20% above their hoped-for profit (even after considering the new tax hike)!

Cristina called on the blockading farmers to be more rational and let produce trucks transit freely. She called for them to see themselves as “part of a country” and not “proprietors” of it. She called for a new social wealth distribution model, balancing benefits, production and needs, in order to achieve more wealth, and perhaps more wealthy, but also to reduce poverty in the process.

“We can only be a just society, if we can provide employment and social equity to all”. Ninety five percent of Soy is exported nearly in its entirety to European and Asian markets and it is produced by some 84,000 farmers, in a country of 38 million people, or merely 2/10ths of 1% of the population.

To view Cristina Kirchner's speech on soyification see: http://www.casarosada.gov.ar/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1848&Itemid=1

For a text version of speech: http://www.casarosada.gov.ar/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1849

More Information

jdtaillant@cedha.org.ar