Farming sector has 'tough year' ahead, Rural Society head warns

The head of the Argentine Rural Society, Luis Miguel Etchevehere, predicted that the farming sector will be facing “a tough year” and warned that they could go back to striking if they don’t get a response from the Government soon.

“This year is going to be a tough year. All the problems created by the Government’s interventions in the market, which keep us from adequately selling our products, are made worse by a huge fiscal pressure,” he explained.

Etchevehere revealed that the Liaison Table held a meeting last Tuesday, in which they decided not to go on strike for the time being since they are trying to give the Government “a change to change their minds,” but he warned that if the Government doesn’t address their concerns “we will not have a choice but to come out and fight.”

“Going on strike would have been the easy thing. Many around the country were calling for it, but we chose to remain rational and decided to show that we don’t want confrontation, that we can give the Government a chance to change their minds. But if nothing happens then we will have no choice but to come out and fight because the situation is unbearable,” he explained.

“This year we will have to come out and fight because we can’t let the Government follow a ‘winner takes all’ logic and keep our activity, our hope, our work and the investment of people who only work and take risks in the benefit of the country,” he added.

The Government is “trying to bring the farming sector to its knees and humiliate it, but this is never going to work. These attacks on the farming sector have upset a lot of people,” Etchevehere concluded.