“Every day is very hard”: the stories behind the drought in the first person

There drought continues to be the main scourge of argentinian field and although the last successive rains have improved the situation of agricultural production in certain parts of the country, the lack of water is such and the rainfall has been so heterogeneous and unstable, that many areas of Argentine agriculture still don’t know what it is. is relief.

The part most affected by the water crisis is in the main productive areas of the country, such as the center and east bandwhich included Santa Fegood part of Buenos Aires and the provinces of Coast. There, productive disaster continues to unfold on agricultural and livestock farms, with sometimes gruesome scenes of dead animals strewn across the arid fields.

Martin Rapetti He is an agricultural producer from the municipality of Corrientes Curuzu Cuatia and also develops an activity in the fields around Gualeguaychú, in Entre Ríos. Although he practices agriculture through a business, defines himself as a farmer who is currently going through a difficult situation. “I am in the process of liquidating my rodeo, unfortunately. I will try to preserve something because I have genetics that are over 80 years old. I can’t lose that, but it becomes very difficult to keep them,” he told GlobeLiveMedia.

Rapetti said this is the third consecutive year of drought the region has suffered and he estimates the lack of water since then at more than 1,000 millimeters, “meaning that streams, rivers and groundwater have dried up. contracted and that there are now only problems in the natural water points, but also in the perforations, in addition to the fact that we have no grass”.

This situation prompted Rapetti to start depopulating his fields. “We had to start extracting ownership from the lots. In my particular case, I’m used to taking 600 head a year in normal situations and I’ve already taken 1,300 head,” he said, adding that cow gestation was 40 percent in 2022, a low rate, but that this year “I don’t think I can get even 15%, because the physical condition of the cows is very poor. In addition, the teeth of the animals wear out, because there is almost no grass on the ground. It’s just dirt, very abrasive. In my field of Curuzú Cuatía there will not be a single cattle. More than 600 hectares without animals”.

But neither on their farms, especially those of rice, good results will be obtained. In fact, he foresees a sharp drop in production because he has only been able to sow a small portion of land. “We have a water dam that allows us to plant 300 hectares, but the dam was only 20% full and we can only do 30 hectares, so our production will be 10% of what we used to do. “, did he declare.

Claudio Berrueta He is president of the Rural Society of one-eyed deer, in the heart of the so-called central zone, the most productive region of Argentine agriculture, but also the most affected by drought. So much so that of the last five plantations he has planted or attempted to plant, only one has remained standing, at the same time that he does not know how he will feed his cattle in winter.

Berrueta argued that today his field lacks grass and that the farm “is on the edge”. To make matters worse, the crops he and his two brothers practiced to generate pasture and fodder reserves were failing. “Last year we made Hungarian moha (fodder grass) to make buns and we had to ‘burn’ them all. Already this year, we prepared 30 hectares for sowing, but everything also dried up, because the rains did not come, and there was a heat above 40 degrees. This means that we are not going to have rolls to feed the animals, which leaves us in a very difficult situation. We will try to make oatmeal early to try to get some food,” he added.

But before that things weren’t going well either. In the midst of a disastrous wheat campaign, Berrueta opted for oats, but he had to “unleash the animals on the plots because nothing could be produced, everything was dry. We prepared for the premium corn and we couldn’t plant it either. We were only able to plant a second-rate one when there was rain in December, which fortunately is not in bad shape today”.

But Berrueta, who says he has never seen a drought of such magnitude, understands that even if he can get supplies of fodder, the damage to his herd is already done. “This situation will affect us in the gestation of the cows, because we do not have them in good body condition, so we will have a drop in productivity. We had an 83% withdrawal rate and this year it will surely go down, although we still don’t know by how much.”

Ignacio Kovarsky He is a farmer, veterinarian and tambero from Trenque Lauquen, an area in the territory of Buenos Aires where drought has hit livestock and also agriculture. But also, Kovarsky is on the board of directors of the Confederation of Rural Associations of Buenos Aires and La Pampa (Carbap), so he also has a political point of view on the issue and criticizes the official reaction to such a disaster.

“We have very harsh temperatures and they are a blowtorch because it is 38 or 40 degrees with wind and it tears your crops. You go to the field at 10 am and you can already see all the wrinkled crops. There is not too much thermal amplitude, the night ends up being 28 degrees,” Kovarsky said. In this sense, he remarked that “the daily life of the producer is very hard. Going to the fields and seeing how your crops are dying, knowing that the bills to pay are with your family and the boy who has to go to university… It’s very hard. Daily life is very hard. So, in the meantime, (the government) announces all these empty advertisements.

“The most annoying thing is that the cows do not reach the sleeve (to be able to be transferred). The foot and mouth disease vaccination is coming and I will not be able to take them because they do not reach my sleeve, that is to say they die because I have no water, it is hopeless ” , said Kovarsky and complained that in such a situation there is no adequate response from politics, according to his criteria: “They are not going to see it (the situation) because they are arguing to see who goes first on the lists, they see how they get there, they see the pat on the back to see who they push and who gets there. It’s expensive.”

Regarding the national government in particular, he understands that the relief measures that were announced last week “are part of the emergency law. These are things that are already there, they are already stipulated and they expand them. They are creating charts to now assess the impact of the drought. The truth is I think It’s a cotillion government”.

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