Argentina’s powerful farming leaders on Friday launched a seven-day strike in response to the government’s refusal to lower export taxes on soybeans, the country’s main crop.
“We declare that from midnight tonight to midnight Friday March 27 a strike from selling cereals, oilseeds and livestock,” union leader Mario Llambias announced at a press conference.
Argentine agriculture unions, representing 250,000 farmers, have repeatedly vowed that the year-long strife between the government of Argentine President Cristina Kirchner and farmers over export taxes was not resolved.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
The action was ordered as a response to Kirchner’s surprise announcement on Thursday that the revenue from 30 percent export duties on soybeans — at an estimated value of US$1.8 billion a year — would be directed at Argentine provinces and municipalities.
“The strike is for the new insult from the government aimed at Argentine producers,” rural advocate Hugo Biolcati said.
At a news conference Kirchner said the funding taken from soy taxes would ease the impact of the global economic crisis and help invest in infrastructure projects throughout the country.
Farmers and their political backers maintain that hefty taxes are throttling production in the country — a top supplier of wheat, corn, beef and soybeans.
Argentina’s exports amount to around US$35 billion of food produce a year, providing more than 50 percent of foreign sales in the South American country.
The farmers are complaining that the heavy taxes — up to 35 percent for soybeans and between 20 percent and 35 percent for other grain products — are hurting farmers and ranchers already affected by the most devastating drought in 50 years.
Kirchner, who inherited the farming strife from her predecessor and husband Nestor Kirchner, has refused to scale back export taxes, saying it would deplete government coffers, and has accused the opposition of stoking the fire.
Farmers held two major strikes last year in March and July that emptied supermarket shelves, and recently held a five-day strike ending Feb. 24.
Earlier this month the government said it had reached a landmark agreement, while unions were not so quick to hail a deal.
“We’ve reached an agreement,” Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo told reporters on March 3 after talks with farm leaders, adding that the deal “put an end to the conflict.”
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