When I arrived in Buenos Aires after an exhausting 20-hour journey, I would have imagined hustle and bustle and people running around everywhere – but no, it was one of the most relaxed and friendliest cities we have come across.

Everyone smiles and enjoys life and, most importantly, drinks Yerba Mate (Ilex paraguensis), a traditional South American drink.

Yerba Mate is a native plant in Argentina that is related to Holly. It’s a great coffee substitute and, after getting used to it, I found the drink delicious. Another native crop to Argentina is Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana), which is a natural sugar alternative that is used as a healthy zero-calorie sweetener.

Stevia rebaudiana.

Apart from these two unique crops, farming in Argentina is large-scale and reliant on GM soya and maize seeds along with the weedkiller Roundup. About 90% of Argentinian agriculture has adopted a no-till system where they no longer plough their fields but instead spray the weeds off with Roundup.

No-till system

The no-till system was first introduced to save money as soil cultivations are costly and time-consuming, especially on such a large scale. Then they found that yields were improved, soil organic matter increased and carbon dioxide was sequestered in the soil.

The flaw with this system is that it is completely dependent on herbicide use to kill off the weeds before re-seeding the next crop. This, however, will be an ongoing discussion and more research is necessary.

Many environmentalists promote this system as the carbon is held in the soil and often causes an increase in soil organic matter. I’m not an advocate of this technique, as it requires high inputs of herbicides as well as synthetic fertilisers, but still there is a lesson to be learned. Organic farmers also need to come up with solutions to minimise soil cultivation in order to keep the carbon in the soil or possibly find other ways to increase the organic matter content in their soils.

Farmers have to pay an export tax of 30% on all crops that are exported and that is on top of normal taxes. So they only get about 50% of the value of their crops

Another problem with the over-reliance on one weed killer is the fact that many weeds have developed a resistance to Roundup and can no longer be controlled with it. They are known as superweeds. So farmers have to use additional herbicides just to deal with these superweeds.

Roundup Ready is probably the single most important ingredient in South American and US farming. Monsanto managed to breed crops (soya, maize, oilseed rape and cotton) to develop resistance against this weed killer. This allows farmers to spray a crop even while it is growing. It kills the weeds around it, but not the crop itself.

In Argentina a farm owner nearly always lives in the city and checks in with the farm manager about once per week. There no government support for farming in Argentina – it’s quite the opposite. Farmers have to pay an export tax of 30% on all crops that are exported and that is on top of normal taxes. So they only get about 50% of the value of their crops. The new government is slowly changing this and farmers are more positive about the future.

Exports

Argentina is a major export country – 90% of soya beans, 60% of corn (maize) and 85% of sunflowers are exported.

Despite being a net exporter of agricultural products, about 35% of the Argentinian population lives below the poverty level. Interestingly, 90% of the population lives in urban areas and only 10% in rural areas. A quarter of the total population of Argentina lives in Buenos Aires.

There is this vast countryside with hardly anyone living in it and vast farms which are completely mechanised and often don’t even make a profit – depending on world prices for soya or wheat. We met one farmer who owns 37,000ha and manages the farm with 33 employees – well over 1,000ha per person.

Argentina suffered one of its worst drought periods in 2018 which caused a 30% reduction in GDP.

We saw wonderful co-operation among farmers in Argentina. They formed a group called CREA (Regional Consortium of Agricultural Experimentation) in 1957 in response to soil erosion problems and decline in soil fertility. The organisation is managed and financed by farmers. There are now CREA groups in Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil and Georgia. CREA has 2000 members and 227 regional groups. Each group meets once per month on one of the farms and employ an agronomist.

In the morning everyone shares practical information and technical details and in the afternoon the owner of the farm presents a problem on the farm and the group with the agronomist tries to solve it.

Progressive

We met with Michael Dover (also a CREA member) who farms Martinagro Farm near the town of Rosario. It’s a family farm which started 120 years ago and consists of 2,000ha fertile arable land as well as grassland for a beef enterprise.

Michael is a very progressive farmer who noticed the decline in soil fertility over the last few decades. The organic matter content of his soil dropped from 4.5% in the 1980s to 1% in 2010. Since practising the no-till method and cover cropping alongside a good rotation, his organic matter content has increased to 2%. This is still very low but at least it’s going in the right direction.

Michael’s crop rotation includes legume crops such as peas, beans and soya beans as well as chamomile.

Chamomile.

He is the co-founder of Argenmilla, the largest chamomile producer in the world.

Michael said the impact of climate change plays havoc in Argentina. The climate is far more extreme, with prolonged droughts followed by extreme rainfall. Flooding of the fertile plains is becoming an increasing problem causing many crop failures. But he also points his finger to how the land is managed.

Grassland can absorb twice as much water as soya beans and as there was a massive shift from pasture land to the more profitable soya bean production, the land is more prone to flooding. There is no legislation to encourage farmers to grow less soya and more grass in flood-prone areas. Michael is fully aware that changes to agriculture are imminent as the Argentinean society is demanding different ways of producing food.

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