Alberto Fernández receives the Liaison Table: what are the main complaints that the leaders of the field will bring to him

Today the members of the Liaison Board will re-enter the Government House. The last meeting with Alberto Fernández was in 2019, days after his inauguration

In the midst of the controversy over a possible increase in withholdings and the return of export quotas, tools promoted by the Government to control the rise in food prices, Today at 3.30 pm, President Alberto Fernández will receive the leaders of the rural entities that make up the Liaison Table at Government House.

In the production sector, they ensure that the presidential statements of the last weekend are not consistent with their expressions during the electoral campaign and on the promises to the Liaison Table not to return to the measures of the past that caused serious problems to the activity and that they would be consulted when implementing policies for the sector.

The last meeting between Alberto Fernández and the Mesa de Enlace was in December 2019, a few days after the inauguration of the current national administration. In addition, the president during 2020 held a meeting with the representatives of the brand new Argentine Agroindustrial Council, from where a project to increase exports and employment has been promoted in the next 10 years.

The two central topics that the Liaison Board will bring to the meeting are the reiteration of the proposals that are reflected in a 14-point document for the consideration of all the candidates for president in the last elections, and the expansion of the information that determines that producers are not price makers.

The controversy over food prices

There is a conviction in the agricultural and agro-industrial sector that there is an opportunity to continue growing, generating more work and foreign exchange through exports, without neglecting the domestic market. For this, they point out, stable rules of the game are needed that will make it possible to meet the objectives and solve the problems of the situation within the role of supply and demand.

“That is the way, not the sterile confrontation between sectors, looking for culprits, which will only generate conflicts and will reverse everything that has been achieved. We urge the authorities not to fall into recipes or formulas that have already proven to be synonymous with failure, as they themselves have been able to recognize ”, stated from the Breeders Associations.

The meeting this afternoon will serve to bring positions between the Government and the countryside, after last weekend Alberto Fernández slipped the possibility of increasing withholdings or applying quotas to exports.

During his visit yesterday to the province of Tucumán, the president once again insisted on the idea of ​​decoupling international prices from the final values ​​of food. “We seek to take care of people’s pockets. It is necessary to guarantee that international prices do not turn to the detriment of the Argentines ”, he pointed out.

Faced with this position of the president, the leaders of the field will argue that producers “are not price makers” and that the presence of the sector in food prices is minimal. Quite the opposite occurs with the impact of the Argentine cost and taxes on the values ​​paid by consumers in the gondola.

Carlos Vila Moret, vice president of the Argentine Rural Society

Yesterday in a statement, the leaders of the Argentine Confederation of Medium Enterprises (CAME) recalled that the last Price Index at Origin and Destination (IPOD) prepared by the entity, reflected that the average participation of the agricultural producer in the final price of fruits and vegetables is around 25% (in some cases it does not reach 7.5%). Meanwhile, the State has a participation of 32%, reaching 40% if the three levels are added (nation, provinces and municipalities).

“Agricultural producers are not price makers. It has been shown that the impact of primary production on the final value of food is minimal. The distortions and cost overruns are in the intermediaries and in other links in the chain “, they commented from CAME and added:” According to the IPOD of January, the prices of fruit and vegetable products increased 6.09 times from when they left the field until they arrived to the gondola ”.

“We are going with the objective of resuming the dialogue, but we also aim to explain to the President and other government interlocutors what the true role of the producer is and how prices are formed. It is important that you understand, for example, that the producer sells steers mostly at public auctions and that he does not decide the price of meat in the gondola. Nor does it decide its destination, whether it is for export or for internal consumption. It seems something very basic but in light of the statements of the last days there is obviously a very great confusion in the Government in this regard, “he said. Carlos Vila Moret, Vice-president of the Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA).

Jorge Chemes, president of CRA 

In this regard, the president of Confederaciones Rurales Argentinas (CRA), Jorge Chemes, said: “The countryside has been working with a lot of patriotism, and it has been putting its shoulder to the country for many years, and it is not recognized; we want them to recognize who we are. You have to do a lot of teaching. From the field we never generate a clear communication so that the common people understand it ”.

Another of the leaders who gave his opinion on the issue of prices was Elvio Guide, Vice President of the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA): “For years we have been saying that producers are not price makers and it is necessary to review who the beneficiaries are in all chains, because there are enormous distortions, that make there are insurmountable distances between the price we are paid for our products and those paid by consumers in gondolas. That does not depend on international prices, but on stripping those who always win in the country, “he said.

To all this, the Breeders Associations stated: “The production is not responsible for the prices as if it is the same government that does little or nothing to reduce the tremendous tax burden that overwhelms and makes the products of the family basket more expensive. Any measure mentioned by the President of the Nation threatens the growth of production, affecting employment, the roots of livestock personnel and the skilled labor force that the meat processing industry employs by the thousands. If we add to this trade, transportation and all those who make up the meat chain, hundreds of thousands of jobs will be affected at such a delicate time for the country. “

Proposals of the Liaison Table

At today’s meeting, the producers’ representatives will present Alberto Fernández again, as they did on two occasions during 2019, the agricultural proposal that contemplates 14 points agreed between the four entities, in pursuit of the “harmonious development of our entire country, of production, employment, poverty reduction, and intelligent links with the world.”

The leaders of the field propose a long-term agroindustrial policy that allows improving the competitiveness of the sector, by lowering labor costs and tax pressure, allowing investment and generating quality employment.

On the other hand, from the Liaison Board they ask for “predictability, economic stability, legal security and public-private interaction”, and in terms of infrastructure the producers demanded connectivity, electrification in rural areas and improvement of rural roads.

The president of CRA, Jorge ChemesHe specified that the objective of the entities “is to reaffirm everything that we have been saying to the officials and the president. In December 2019 we have given you a document with 14 points. What we want is not to leave any possibility of being told that we are not making any proposals and now we want to reaffirm them ”.

December 23, 2019, last meeting of Alberto Fernández and the Liaison Committee, It was at Government House. (Presidency) 

In that sense, Vila Moret said: “We will once again reiterate the devastating effect that withholdings and quotas have on production, something that we have already experienced in the recent past and destroyed the harvest and export volumes, the planted area and the capacity of the field of generating foreign exchange and employment. Anyway, They are all ideas and proposals contained in our document, which we have already approached the Government on several occasions, but obviously they have not read it carefully, otherwise they would not be saying the things they say. We will take it back ”.

In addition, the document of 14 points that make up the proposal of the Liaison Table, yesterday from the Argentine Agrarian Federation, its president Carlos Achetoni commented that this afternoon they will present to Alberto Fernández the request to remove VAT on food from the basic basket, an initiative that the entity raised days ago for its corresponding analysis.

On the other hand, the federated will ask to move forward with more tax disaffection, to boost productions throughout the country with progressivity and greater emphasis from the smallest to medium and large producers. And there will also be an order for special and suitable tools for the development of family farming, as well as financing conditions according to scale and production.

Other demands that the Federation will raise will be to promote cooperativism and associativism to achieve greater generation of added value and employment, and implement funding from the agricultural emergency law to assist producers when they suffer inclement weather in their productions. Lastly, mention will be made of the entity’s proposal on multi-risk insurance and the need for reference prices so that producers obtain an improvement in the prices they receive.