A tremendous business deal negotiated by my wife to turn a substantial portion of the old homestead into cropland is about to be signed......but it's another sad chapter in the Argentine beef industry story.
Modern farming is nothing like traditional ranching; it's a poisonous affair not even counting the transgenic seed that will go into the ground (actually, the transgenic thing allows the plant to withstand even more poison than a "normal" plant... hence, less weeds and pests, more soya, corn, whatever.)
80% of our land is not even prime cropland but such is the worldwide demand for grain and oilseed that even we are in the crosshairs of Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill... and, baby, do they ever gots the hairs.
I was recounting the whole sad story to Sexy Spanish Club's husband, Tom Frost, at our party. This pressure is, obviously, irresistible to ranchers in a GOOD financial situation... what that means is it's a no-brainer, manna-from-heaven thang to your average Argentine rancher who, believe me, is not in a good position to resist any kind of cash flow.
We could have, would have resisted the temptation (I'm making excuses here... but they are heartfelt.) but we are faced with a ever-losing proposition raising one of your favorite things about Argentina.
Agriculture and the economy as a whole is under a heavy hand from government policies... most of which I agree with. However, all other sectors of agri-business at least get a "parting-gift" from the government in the way of some kind of subsidy for the added burden.
The beef sector gets more and more restricted without the sops that get thrown to everyone else. Even if there were no Argentine restrictions, world beef producers are subject to "the Hilton quota" which effectively keeps/kept Argentina from taking over the world in terms of prime, fresh cuts of restaurant-quality beef. So that means that even before this, ranchers here were under restrictions that nobody else was under.
I tend to think... and maybe you do too... that there is no other segment of agriculture with which Argentina is so identified as beef. That is not true. Actually we here produce practically all the wheat that is grown in South America (big numbers!) and always have. Practically all the bread that is eaten in Brazil, for example, is from Argentine grain: wheat won't grow well in hot climates.
But wheat is not famous... great steak is.
I fear that the beef that made Argentina famous will go the way of North America... and be produced mostly in feedlots. Feedlot beef producers are benefiting from the restrictions on and subsidies given to grain producers here.
When good grass-fed beef goes... and it's going... it will be very, very difficult to re-instate.
Our ranch is as organic as it gets. After we soak a goodly portion in 2-4-D/glyfosato it will be years before we could stop and reverse the situation. Even then, I probably would never in my lifetime be able to hold my head up as high as I do today when the mention arises of truly natural, organic, grass-fed beef.
In our area, we are among the first to make this decision... but there is an outer ring of ranches many kilometers from us that have been doing this for a while.
Come Spring, I'll be surprised if everyone in our neck of the pampas hasn't made the same decision... and grassland on which dinosaurs actually trod will be soy.
* apologies to the Bhagavad Gita
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