Expoagro 2023, in San Nicolás, is expressing an extraordinary manifestation of agro-industrial potential.
It is not a party, nor a celebration
.
It is a living proclamation, through gritted teeth.
Because such creativity put into action has the bitter aftertaste of the
squandering of the resources
that we have learned to obtain, based on technology, inventiveness, effort.
Meritocracy
.
More than 600 companies exhibiting their equipment, supplies and services, in front of thousands of producers who –despite everything– come to see what's new, in the frantic
search to open paths in their long flight forward.
This year, to the nonsense of the economic policy towards agriculture of a government that only sees it as a way to finance its necessities,
is added an unprecedented drought
.
And on top of that, with
a violent early frost
that, in mid-February, gave the coup de grace to a harvest that had gone badly.
Between what was lost in wheat and barley, plus the debacle of soybeans and corn,
losses of 20,000 million dollars are estimated
.
The macroeconomic impact is gigantic, but
it will be felt particularly in the interior, where the "diffusion effect" of agricultural activity is enormous
.
Everything that is seen at Expoagro is what moves commerce, industry and services.
50 million less tons are millions of kilometers that the trucks will not travel from the farms to the port
.
Less covers that are consumed and exported in the form of grains and their derivatives.
Fewer truckers stopping at highway grills.
Everyone knows, however, that this is an exceptional phenomenon.
And also, from the field, most think that this policy is also an accident of history.
It's been a long time, it's true.
But
it seems that the light is at the end of the tunnel
.
Nobody quite knows how, but the systematic taxation, reopened 20 years ago with the return of withholdings, is coming to an end.
The same as
the exchange differential
, which remains at an obscene figure, close to 100%, consolidating
the largest grain theft in the history of agriculture worldwide.
Since 2002,
the State captured 175,000 million dollars
from agriculture only for export rights.
Added to this is the differential.
At the end of the day,
for every three ships that an exporter loads, he charges one.
The other two, sunk.
Machiavellian sea battle.
What Expoagro tells us is that
agriculture baipasea this situation
.
There is a
long-term vision
.
We are sorry forty years ago, when the first exhibition with technology in action was held, the well-remembered Expodinámica de La Laura in Chacabuco.
It was in 1983. We were coming out of the military dictatorship, after the defeat of Malvinas.
The economic crisis was very serious, in addition to the worldwide discredit due to the outrages on human rights.
The first response came from the field
.
In La Laura it was felt that everyone wanted to contribute to the recovery.
I lived it from the inside.
They made it among a handful of manufacturers who, shovel in hand, nailed the flag to the first dynamic samples, heralding the great change that was coming.
There was no soybean, nor direct sowing.
The main exhibits were almost cinched with tractors pulling share plows, eccentric harrows, chisels, vibrocultivators, which was what was used all over the world to “
break” the soils.
.
No-till had not been consolidated, hardly any outline and above all many doubts.
There was the conservationist conscience, and that is why vertical tillage made its way in front of the share and moldboard plows.
But nothing of direct sowing, which would come after the hand of the
imposing Victor Trucco, to whom a Nobel would be too small
.
No one has done so much since Norman Borlaug to introduce
an efficient and environmentally friendly way
, ending the era of erosive, carbon-intensive agriculture.
In La Laura there were practically no automotive sprayers.
If I remember correctly, in the sample there were only some drag.
Everything was mechanical weed control
, based on irons.
Soils made flour, weeds advancing galloping.
Everything changed.
Today Expoagro concentrates the conceptual vanguard of the new agriculture.
It is much more than the capital of agribusiness.
It is the advance towards a productive and sustainable model.
I remember those men.
From Lelio Lambertini
, owner of Mainero, personally placing the flagpoles with the company's flags.
With his brother Nelson (Tito) on a par.
Today Tito's son is the president of the company, which in these 40 years has made phenomenal progress.
They are the creators of the corn system that the whole world uses today.
But a few years ago
they invented a new header, a worldwide patent, that allows maize to be harvested in all directions, without the need to respect the rows.
It will be on display at the Technological Technodrome, together with the
drones and spraying robots
, remote soil analyzers, new ideas for pneumatic seed distributors, electronic process control systems and functions.
Guys like Abelardo Cuffia or Jorge Gentile with their monitors, precision equipment and robots are world-class.
And for this whole wave of Agtech to be viable and operational, the connectivity issue had to be resolved.
Today a study ordered by the Telecom telephone company to the FADA Foundation will be presented to analyze the demand and
alternatives for full connectivity service in rural areas
.
It will be one of the milestones of Expoagro.
A new paraphernalia where Argentine entrepreneurs mix with the world vanguard.
The carbon fiber shelling heads
will also be there
, another
technological leap that arises from Creole creativity
: an ultra-light material, used in the sports industry, which suddenly appears on the booms of the sprayers.
John Deere acquired the factory of these booms (in Campana).
Other Argentine companies are adopting them.
But it was just the tip of the iceberg.
Now there is a
45-foot platform
, in carbon fiber, which would have been unfeasible with conventional materials.
Only in Argentina is there the idea of
a lighter agriculture in a broad sense
: simpler processes, less capital at stake,
less operating cost, less energy consumption.
The silobag, the automotive sprayers, the efficient model of the contractor, which gets the most out of its teams with knowledge, training and positive energy.
Everything is going in the same direction.
The carbon footprint
.
For example, a button: today an agreement will be announced between the Puma platform, which calculates the carbon footprint of each agricultural process, with Agrology and Viterra.
Agrology is a grower company and Viterra is the new name for Glencore, no less.
Great actors of the Second Revolution of the Pampas.
We live intensely a show that will be historic.
I insist: it is not a party, nor a celebration.
It's a punch on the table
, followed by a shout: Here we are!
Let them go by
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