AGRICULTURE-ARGENTINA: Fields Turned into Oceans

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 19 2001 (IPS) - The highway that runs through the central Argentine province of La Pampa – part of the region once known as the world’s breadbasket – looks like a never-ending pier stretching out across a calm, flat ocean of water.

Punctuating the watery landscape are the occasional rooftop, the tips of trees, or a man riding a swimming horse – reminders that there are actually crops, houses and entire towns buried under the water.

This is one of the worst floods in the history of Argentina’s pampas, humid flatlands that are among the most fertile plains in the world. The water currently covers 3.5 million hectares in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Cordoba, La Pampa and Santa Fe.

The governors of the four provinces urged the national government of Fernando de la Rúa Thursday to declare the region a disaster area in order to exempt farmers from paying taxes and the installments on their loans, and called on it to consider providing financial assistance, and to undertake efforts to mitigate the effects of the catastrophe.

The flooding was the result of unprecedented rainfall – 1,200 mms, the normal total for the entire year, fell in September alone – compounded by the lack of drainage systems to carry the excess water to the rivers, in a region where there are virtually no slopes.

The lack of infrastructure aimed at preventing floods, which has been planned by authorities but never built due to lack of initiative or funds, has led many farmers to dig canals or ditches around their fields, aggravating the problems faced by their neighbours, who receive the resulting run-off.

“This is anarchy. The farmers dig canals and flood neighbouring fields. There is no one to stamp some sort of order on the flows of water,” protested the president of the Rural Association of the town of Henderson, in the province of Buenos Aires. Only the city centre sticks out of the water, like an island.

The catastrophe has already led to the evacuation of more than 4,000 people, but it has affected nearly 11,000 small and medium farmers who have not only lost their crops but will not be able to plant again for who knows how long, and who have to simply dump the milk from their cows because they have no way to get it to the market.

The pampas are rich in grains, oilseed crops and livestock – especially cattle – and the region affected by the floods accounts for 10 percent of Argentina’s agricultural production. Even before the rains, farmers were suffering a financial crisis due to the slump in commodities prices and high interest rates on their loans.

The government of the province of Buenos Aires estimates the losses at 300 million dollars, although farmers put the figure higher: 500 million, according to the Argentine Agrarian Federation, and 900 million according to the National Confederation of Agrarian Cooperatives.

Authorities promised that state-owned banks would refrain from foreclosing on indebted farmers, and would refinance their debts. But many are in debt to private banks, which will not wait. And farmers indebted to public sector banks believe that even with an extended grace period, they will not be able to pay back their loans.

Víctor Gasparini, with the Argentine Agrarian Federation, told IPS that the recurrent flooding that has occurred since 1986 has had increasingly heavy consequences, while authorities have failed to recognise that the economic losses are greater than the cost of the infrastructure works that could prevent them.

“People in the countryside are already in a very tough situation due to the economic crisis, and many have had to migrate to the cities,” he said. “The situation is desperate, because the only thing farmers can do is sit inside their homes and wait for it to stop raining, so they can take stock of their losses.”

The farmers’ troubles will not disappear overnight, even if the infrastructure works are carried out immediately, said Gasparini, who owns a farm in the central province of Cordoba, one of the affected areas.

“It will take a long time for the soil to recover,” he explained. “Just how long will depend on the violence of the water flows, how long the land remained underwater, and the extent of the loss of minerals and salts.”

Gasparini said the flooding has become chronic in some provinces, leading many farmers to turn to aquaculture, farming different species of fish in the newly created “ponds.”

Wheat and corn farmers find themselves in big trouble, just as they were to be getting ready for the harvest. In some fields, the crops are not even visible above the water. In others, the water has dried up somewhat, but the tools and machines sink into the mud. Swamps have formed, new pests are spreading, and the fertile top layer of soil has been washed away.

Around the town of Henderson, underground aquifers are nearer to the surface. “In the past, they were three or four metres below the surface, but now you can reach them simply by digging with your hand in swampy areas,” said Gasparini.

The underground aquifers have increased the humidity of the surface area, aggravated by the heavy rainfall, which is predicted to continue at least until December.

Dairy farmers have already begun to throw out milk. “A cow that produces 20 or more litres a day has to be milked, because otherwise it’ll die. Farmers are dumping the milk because they have no way to get to the highway,” said Gasparini.

Some ride their horses through the water to the highway, to reach a waiting truck. In some cases, the roads, built to enable farmers to get their products to the market, act today as dikes.

The farmers come and go with their cargo on horseback, recalling images of the early 20th century, when Argentina was known as the world’s breadbasket.