I WAS in Argentina for a fortnight in late March/early February, just as the maize harvest was getting underway, studying its agriculture with a dozen fellow Nuffield scholars – but one of the great things about the Nuffield network is that it opens doors that remain firmly shut to most folk.

So, we were able to have a real insight into an industry dominated by chaotic government (almost like home!).
It proved impossible to spend more than five minutes in the company of an Argentinean farmer or businessman before the subject of politics was brought up. Argentina is a country of contrasts where wealth is ill-divided between the obscenely wealthy and the abjectly poor.
The politicians in power see the nation’s wealth as being concentrated in farmers’ hands and want to redistribute it to the growing element of urban poor for whom no jobs are available.
An example of how government interference is undermining their agriculture is their attempt to control the price of bread by taxing wheat exports. That ill-advised policy has led to drastically reduced planting of wheat and the real possibility that Argentina may have to import wheat this year.
Argentina’s world-renowned beef industry is another casualty of government taxes on exports to satisfy domestic demand for beef. The present government, like the previous one, implemented price caps on beef.
In effect this has encouraged a marked rise in government-subsidised consumption of beef, which rose to record highs in 2007.
The increased consumption has not resulted in a concurrent rise in industry profits and has led to farmers switching from beef to soyabeans and maize.
As with wheat, the beef herd cull has led to fears that Argentina may be forced to import beef in the near future.
The stark decline in Argentina’s agricultural industry is a serious challenge for President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s government, which is already teetering on the brink of what may become a serious fiscal and economic crisis.
The combination of domestic food price controls, high export taxes and last year’s major drought has left the industry floundering.
The government’s populist policies have effectively crippled the country’s most basic and valuable asset – the most naturally arable and promising territory in all of South America.