SRA blames government for floods

The SRA Argentine Rural Society’s second vice-president Luis Etchevehere yesterday held the government responsible for the serious flooding that has affected a large area of Buenos Aires province.

“We are all responsible for this flooding and the loss of 300,000 heads of cattle, which are worth more than US$800 million, with respect to all the times that they have charged us taxes which are not translated into the infrastructure necessary to prevent such disasters,” Etchevehere said.

The farm leader, who will take over from Hugo Biolcati as head of the SRA, added: “The floods are due to climate change, but they are also a result of negligence by public official who won‘t show their faces when we hold a meeting.

“The authorities haven’t done the work that they needed to do. Here, no infrastructure works have been undertaken in time or in a way to be able to mitigate problems caused by the excess rain,” Etchevehere added, as he spoke at the opening of the 48th Agricultural Exhibition in Coronel Dorrego.

He added: “In 2006, they branded us as prophets of doom and liars because we warned that beef would be imported, and we had to buy Uruguayan beef.

“Today, we are saying that cattle has lost its competitiveness once again, and doesn't have any incentives to offer investors.”

Continuing on that line, he said: “The number of cows is falling,” and that “cattle needs an urgent change to the rules of the game, the Roes (tax instrument) need to end, which would eliminate caps and would allow us to export freely.”

“While Uruguay is making headway with regard to beef exports, here sales abroad fell 24 percent between January and July of this year in comparison with the same period last year, and we also have smaller domestic consumption per person than in our neighbouring country.”

And discussing the wheat market, Etchevehere said: “Official intervention, which has been going on for six years, discourages the sowing season and generates additional caps as a consequence of closing exports and the ‘cartelization’ of demand.”

The second vice-president of the SRA added: “If, in the majority of cases we found buyers, we suffer from giving discounts costing between US$40 and US$50 a ton. As a result, in Coronel

Dorrego, the wheat sowing season shrank by 50 percent in comparison with the previous season.”

He also called for an administration that “governs by including the whole population. Because in a true democracy, those who have different opinions are respected. In a true democracy, the national TV Network is not used to gang up on those who criticize the government. In a true democracy, the AFIP tax bureau would not be used as a domestication instrument.”

Herald with DyN