The Coordinator of the Production Entities of Currents estimated at 130.444 million pesos the losses in the five main production chains in the province due to prolonged drought and fires.
Rice, citriculture, afforestation, yerba mate and breeding were the activities analyzed to try to estimate the degree of alteration that produced the drastic decrease in rainfall.
Rice: losses of 23,550 million dollars
Despite the fact that the rice harvest advanced by only 20% in the 2022/2023 campaign 30,000 fewer hectares have been planted because the producers had already noticed the lack of water for irrigation, as well as the announcement that the La Niña phenomenon would continue. Of the 68,000 hectares planted at the end of last year, 20,000 were abandoned for lack of water. In other words, only 48,000 are left in production, with an average yield of 5,500 kilos per hectare, two tons less than in a season with normal weather conditions.
With a 51% drop in acreage and a lower yield, production would drop from 735,000 to just 264,000 tons, which equates to a 64% drop. If we take an estimated value of 50,000 pesos per ton, rice farmers will lose an income of 23,550 million pesos. And they would have serious problems funding the new campaign.
Citrus: $15,000 million
Another activity affected by the drought is citrus cultivation. Corrientes has approximately 30,000 hectares divided into two basins: Bella Vista-Concepción and Monte Caseros-Mocoretá. In the first, lemon is mainly produced and drought occurs there a loss of 2,500 million pesos due to a 60% drop in production (50,000 tons of fruit); while in the second, there is a marcato decrease in productivity affecting the industry, domestic market and export of sweet citrus fruits. There the decline is estimated at 250,000 tons, with a loss of 12,500 million pesos.
Forest industry: $53 billion
Corrientes is the main forest province of the country and this year red is close to 53 billion pesos. Losses of timber amount to a total of 49.6 billion pesos, taking into account damage from fires, plant mortality from stress and reduced growth.
“The reforestation areas burned this year plus the area that has some drought damage (35,045 hectares according to the INTA report), represent 8% of the provincial forest area. If we include the affected area in the previous period, they accumulate 14% of said total. The cost of replacing the burned plantations in 2023 alone amounts to 451 million pesos,” the report specifies.
The loss of production pine resin reaches 615 million pesos, to which must be added another 1.9 billion due to the decrease in the quality of the mine (oil).
Yerba mate: $2.1 billion
Even yerba mate, which is produced in the extreme north-east of the province, has not escaped the climatic effects. There are about 27,000 hectares that lost 23,544,453 kilograms of green leaves in 2022, which is equivalent to 1,645 million pesos which manufacturers have stopped receiving. For this year, meanwhile, there would be a new reduction of around 30 million kilos, with which yerbateros will see their income reduced in another 2,100 million pesos.
Livestock: $37,000 million
Corrientes is known to be a strong player in livestock production (the fourth largest in the country). With more than six million hectares devoted to cattle ranching, the province is estimated to produce 325,084,771 kilos of meat a year, but the drought has caused a 20% drop, around 60,000 million kilos.
With an average of 430 pesos per kilo, only in meat production 25,800 million pesos were lost. Added to this is a sharp increase in mortality, which rose from an average of 3% to 5%, which represents 96,900 more animals who died due to lack of food and water.
If an average value of 120,000 pesos per animal is taken as a reference, Corrientes ranchers did not have a turnover of 11,116 million pesos a due to the climatic phenomenon which has left many fields without water and without grazing.
Source: Clarin
