Syngenta CEO admits he spoke to Massa to raise the price of soybeans

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Last Monday Antonio Aracre communicated with Sergio Massa around noon. The visit of American Jeff Rowestrategic area manager for Syngenta’s crop protection worldwide, warranted an interview with the Minister. The appointment was agreed and Aracre wanted to finalize a crucial detail: whether there would be a translator.

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As he told Clarin, Massa asked him what was happening in the transfer market. It was the day the second version of the soy dollar debuted, this time with a change of $230. Aracre made him uncomfortable.

How was that dialogue?, Clarin asked him.

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I told him that for what he had closed the blackboard the previous Friday, at $70,000 a ton of soybeans.that Monday two large companies they had offered $80,000, which seemed very little to me, because the improvement in the exchange rate meant 40% more and the producers were paid a price just 18% higher. And I anticipated: “We will offer $88,000 per ton of soybeans. It’s a reasonable price. I go out to conquer the market, I will gain a competitive advantage”.

And what did the minister say?

-Give it, break it, do it, In the end, the producer has to take advantage of this.

The exporters have read that expression that Massa has made public as an undue intervention…

The minister’s expression was unhappy. I think he is wrong, he takes credit for influencing the market to go higher. But this does not imply a crime, but rather the intention that a part of the price improvement reaches the producer. Its government function is that the improvements are distributed.

For you, is this an attempt to intervene on the market?

-Somehow the soy dollar is an intervention in the market with a substantial improvement in the exchange rate. They are political tools in a country that needs dollars.

Why was Syngenta willing to pay more than the others?

-We operate in the grain market with the intention of selling seeds and agrochemicals. It’s a way to improve our relationship as producers can pay us with their product and we offer them better conditions. We pay what corresponds because with the drought, in addition, much less has been sold and it is a way to gain a position on the market. And we need dollars to import active ingredients for our products and it’s good to have an export position.

On December 31, Aracre will cease to be CEO of Syngenta, company born in 2000 from the merger of the agrochemical divisions of the Swiss Novartis and the British Swedish Astra Zpeneca. In 2017 Syngenta was bought for $43 billion by Chem China, which later merged with Cofco, also Chinese. It is the world’s leading agrochemical company.

In Argentina, they own Nidera and have been a seed and herbicide leader for six consecutive years in a company where multimillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions permanently displace the board of directors, as happened with Bayer-Monsanto or the merger of Dupont and Dow which gave rise to Corteva. . Aracre dates Alberto Fernández and is friends with Martín Guzmán.

Will he enter politics?

-No. I’m tempted by some millennials to create a think tank.

Source: Clarin

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