Sun, May 23, 2021 page16

• Argentina’s beloved beef becomes bone of contention

  • By Nina Negron / AFP, BUENOS AIRES
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  The grill master salts the cut of beef that is to go into the fire, from where it heads to the table where a hungry family is gathered. It is an age-old ritual for Argentines to get together over a jaw-dropping asado, but one that has grown increasingly out of the reach of many of them.

  “Aside from being nourishment, beef is the center of the whole barbecue culture we Argentines have,” said Emmanuel Lapetina, president of La Pena meatpackers.

  “It is the get-together; it is the Sunday barbecue and it is the excuse to get together with the family on weekends.”

  

  A butcher works at the butcher’s shop of the Don Julio restaurant in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires on Thursday.

  Photo: AFP

  However, all those heart-warming, stomach-inspiring moments of glory that Argentines experience with their grass-fed beef are under threat because of low purchasing power.

  Despite high international prices, local inflation has seen the cost of beef surge a stunning 65 percent.

  The government is keen to find a way to help more people to afford what feels like a birth right, but a pricing row between the government of center-left Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and livestock producers drove the latter to declare a nine-day production halt.

  “Nobody wants to stop eating asado. It is in our culture to eat beef, that’s why so there’s so much tension when it gets very expensive,” Lapetina said.

  Argentina, recognized worldwide as a top flight grass-fed beef producer, is the world’s No. 4 beef exporter. It made 3.4 billion dollars in beef sales last year, with much going to Russia and China.

  Locals’ love for prized cuts has actually turned beef into a hot black market commodity, and meat producers are suspicious of government involvement.

  In 2006, when then-Argentine president Nestor Kirchner was leading the country and Fernandez was chief of the cabinet of ministers, a restriction on meat exports, initially planned for six months, ended up being extended for 10 years.

  During that period, 12.5 million head of cattle and 19,000 jobs were lost that have not yet been recovered, according to the Argentine Chamber of Commerce of Meat and Derivatives.

  Gustavo Caballero, 34, has been a grill master for seven years at Don Julio restaurant in Buenos Aires, last year recognized as the best in Latin America by the prestigious 50 Best Restaurants ranking.

  Before the COVID-19 pandemic it had an average of 500 diners per day.

  “What I like, what I am really passionate about, is to see every time someone comes and eats a good barbecue. When they leave happy, that is something very special for me,” Caballero said, as the tables placed on the terrace outside for health reasons began to fill up.

  The restaurant goes to great lengths to procure the best meat. It has a refrigerator manager who goes to the market to look for the best cuts before any other buyers arrive, and since last year, it has been running its own butcher shop in the Palermo neighborhood, one block from the restaurant.

  Legend has it that before Buenos Aires had any inhabitants, it had cows. Juan de Garay, the city’s founder, arrived from Asuncion with cattle that reproduced very easily in the area of the River Plate, where he found a seasonal European-style climate.

  Martin Vivanco has dedicated his life to raising breeding cattle in San Antonio de Areco, in Buenos Aires Province, following in a family tradition linked to the land that he said should be preserved because “it is what the world appreciates.”

  “I do genetics with the Aberdeen Angus breed, I breed improved animals. I try to get my clients to incorporate the best possible genetics so that the meat continues to have the qualities for which it is most appreciated in the world: tenderness, taste, those things which have made Argentine beef famous,” he said. “The cows are always outdoors, in the field, in the rain, in the sun. That gives them some characteristics that are very good for the breed, which is rusticity, the ability to adapt to adverse climates,” he said.

  In the local conflict over beef supplies and accessibility, Vivanco has it clear, on the economic front. “The problem is not whether the beef is cheap or expensive. The problem is that the consumption capacity of Argentines has decreased due to miserable wages and inflation,” he said.

  Argentina — with 45 million people in a country of plains and Andean peaks — has about 54 million head of cattle.

  In March, according to the statistics from the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture, 1.1 million head were slaughtered, with a production of almost 236,775 tonnes of meat, of which 66,587 tonnes were for export, mainly to China.
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