Gonzalo Sanchez
09/12/2020 - 17:25
Clarín.com
Society
Agustín Dranovsky is 42 years old.
He is the highest authority of the Compañía de Tierras Sud Argentino Limitado, founded in 1889 and owned by the Benetton family since 1991. He took command in 2019, enthusiastic about the challenge of producing in Patagonia and for continuing the legacy of Diego Perazzo, his predecessor in the position, and
Carlo Benetton
, who died in 2018. He soon knew that he would not only have the responsibility of carrying out the productive, diverse and exciting front, but that he would also have to deal with an inseparable fact: the Mapuche issue.
Dranovsky manages the 900 thousand hectares they own in Argentina, where there are also three usurpations of land by groups belonging to indigenous peoples that the Justice does not finish.
Dranovsky's youth, married, father of two girls, is shocking, but does not speak of a short career.
It started at HSBC Bank.
Then he went to Grupo Bermejo, where he spent 12 years.
Since 2012, as CEO.
I felt like I had completed a cycle.
In parallel, the CTSA began a restructuring process.
They came to him.
"I accepted the challenge," he says.
-Did you meet Carlo Benetton?
-Yes, before he passed away, in 2018. From that fact, the relationship between Argentina and Edizione, which is the holding company of the Benetton family in Italy, changed.
Change the era: from the management of Carlo and Perazzo to this new stage.
I started in April 2019.
-When Benetton arrived in the country in the '90s, it said that it was doing it to vertically integrate its production, from raw material to final product, from wool to pullover, is this still the case?
-If so.
The family arrived in Argentina in the '80s, bought fields in Buenos Aires.
Later, for the wool that the textile firm consumed in Europe, they arrived at Estancia Leleque in Chubut.
They buy the Land Company.
A production company made up of Argentine employees and assets.
And it grew a lot.
It grew towards Santa Cruz.
The Faimali meat processing plant was incorporated in Río Gallegos, which has just made the first export in the history of Argentine sheep meat to Japan and continues to open markets.
We also have a very advanced forestry project.
-How much land do they have in Argentina today?
-There are 900 thousand hectares in Chubut, Santa Cruz, Río Negro and Buenos Aires.
But a clarification must be made.
Patagonia is hostile to produce.
A producer needs to subsist around 4 or 5 thousand sheep.
For that, you need at least 20 thousand hectares.
The dimensions many times, if the area is not known, they are read distorted.
-How many employees do you have?
-At work peaks, 550 people.
At times of lower level, about 300. And we also hire a lot of outsourced services in the communities where we work.
The Estancia Leleque from the air.
Photo Germán García Adrasti
-How did the coronavirus affect them?
-It led us in terms of administration to a deeper digitization.
It affected us in the refrigerator because in Brazil and Europe the consumption of lamb fell.
And we had to put together work schemes in the rooms to maintain order, quality of life, hygiene, something that was already a legacy, but which we intensified more.
In addition, the price of wool fell 50% and that is going to be hard.
-How much do you invest per year in Argentina?
-Between salaries, taxes, purchases, about $ 19 million each year.
In contracted services, around 5 million dollars that go to the area where we produce.
Agustín Dranovsky, CEO of the Compania Argentina de Tierras Sud Argentino, is 42 years old.
Photo Lucia Merle
- Where would you start to count the Mapuche conflicts that the CTSA has?
-The company started in 1889. Until 1975 it was in foreign hands.
Then it passed to three Argentine families who sold to Benetton in 1991. From then until 2002 there was no conflict with indigenous peoples.
The CTSA is even prior to the creation of the Cushamen pastoral reserve, a neighboring community with which we live perfectly.
For example, there are 28 families who have a key to open and close gates and use the internal roads of the ranches to reach the paved road.
-How many Mapuche employees do you have?
-65% of the employees are of Mapuche origin.
They are ties of many years.
The magnitude that we have as an organization forces us to collaborate in the community permanently.
There may be different ideological issues, but that does not prevent there from being ties of harmony.
-But the claims appeared.
-We currently have three usurpations.
One, that of Curñanco, began in 2002. Justice ordered the eviction and the property was recovered, but this same family again usurped the lot, which is called Santa Rosa.
And there is a new final judgment that says that the property belongs to the company and the eviction corresponds.
But it cannot be carried out because in 2006 the emergency law for indigenous communities was passed, which prevents evictions until a community census is carried out.
And that has been extended.
Expires again in 2021.
The Santa Rosa lot.
For Justice, it is proven that it corresponds to the Benetton Land Company, but there still lives a Mapuche family.
-That family alleges ancestral preexistence.
- Yes, that is your argument, but the Justice proved that this lot belongs to CTSA.
The Company had to present all the corresponding documentation on limits and other issues.
-Those titles have been objected many times due to their age. It is an argument of the communities. Have they managed to properly measure the limits?
-This work has been done since 2000. Those measurements are on which the real estate tax that we pay later is calculated.
The fences were adjusted based on that and have passed the review of more than one judge because having three usurpations that test is essential.
View of the land taken by militants Mapuche Ancestral Resistance (RAM) in Benetton fields on Route 40. Photo Maxi Failla
-Is the RAM inside any of its rooms?
-
In 2015, with a very violent attitude, the RAM entered the Vuelta del Río lot, Estancia Leleque.
From then on, a lot of acts of violence take place: they end in 62 complaints.
Five very serious because five stalls set fire.
In three there were employees with their families.
They made a mock execution of a stallholder.
Another was kept in the water for hours in the middle of winter.
Another, with small children, was beaten and then set on fire.
At the Retamo post there was a confrontation with the stallholder, who defended himself.
And many episodes of cattle rustling, cutting of fences, leathers with the company brand were found.
Many complaints we made are on file.
And these people are still there.
-What does Justice say?
-We need Justice to rule.
Because of all this in Vuelta del Río, people changed their way of connecting with the Company.
The employees began to be afraid.
They do not dare to leave the post because their family remains inside.
Starting in 2015, many of the Cordillera employees changed their focus: they had to start worrying about their safety.
-And with the arrival of the new Government, do you notice that the assessment of this type of conflict over land has changed?
-For us, Justice has to solve this problem that ends up being a hindrance to production and investment.
An anecdote: the RAM was seized in March 2015. The first raid was made 14 months later.
They arrest 8 people, among them Facundo Jones Huala.
They find firearms, miguelitos, elements of sabotage.
And they release all the detainees, except for Jones Huala, because they cannot be linked to the usurpation that occurred 14 months earlier.
But in addition, they allow them to establish domicile in the place of the usurpation.
That is why we need Justice to resolve this issue.
We just know and like to produce.
-Do you know the people who are occupying that property? Do you know who they are?
-No, because they are hooded.
And we also try to ensure that no employee is exposed.
A Molotov bomb was thrown at one of our foremen, on Route 40, which luckily did not explode.
The first thing today is to preserve the safety of those who work in the company.
-How do you experience the worsening of conflicts: Villa Mascardi, El Bolsón and recently Esquel, already very close to you?
-It is what happens when it is not solved in the correct way.
If Justice had acted preserving property rights, perhaps this would not happen.
What is happening now cannot be seen as isolated events.
It is all chained.
We have three usurpations: 2002, 2015 and 2019. But as of 2015, everything got worse.
You may not share the idea of capitalism or have a question with Benetton because it is great, but the reality is that here a right is being violated.
We still have time to work on it and generate prevention.
-In Chile time seems to have run out ...
-Therefore, you will have seen the level of violence that these events have in Chile.
We are in time to work to prevent it, so that violence does not continue to escalate.
-Your Company is within the territory of the "Mapuche Nation" who seek to forge radicalized groups such as RAM and CAM in Chile.
-
We are aware of the problems we have every day and that end up being an obstacle to production.
This question of wanting to generate a Mapuche nation is present, but we believe that it is a problem that exceeds us and that deserves a solution.
But what concerns us is something that has to do with the safety of our employees.
They want to live in peace and it is that.
- Are there Mapuches who fear other Mapuches?
-I do not have it so clear.
Our employees saw their positions set on fire or a mock shooting of a colleague.
Or cows stolen from Leleque are stolen.
Or the violence on Route 40. They don't want to live like this.
But it is difficult not to be able to give them one hundred percent peace of mind.
- Has Benetton ever thought of leaving the country because of these problems?
-I am not aware.
What I know is that we have different investment projects.
Ten thousand forested hectares.
We plan to install a suitable industry to take advantage of this raw material and trade with the world.
We want to go ahead with that.
Argentina has a huge opportunity in the forestry sector.
But we need legal certainty to move forward.
- But how does the declaration of the Minister of Security, Sabina Frederic, coexist with the idea of legal certainty when she says that the takings are not a crime?
-The reading we do is back in Justice.
Beyond what an official may say, we are immersed in a judicial situation.
We cannot ask politics to intervene Justice.
We believe in the division of powers.
-But they dialogue with politics, I suppose.
-There is a dialogue, but because of the magnitude of the business and we talk about it.
But we know that officials know what is happening here, because it has media coverage.
Anyway, our claim is through Justice.
GS