More respect with the silobolsa

The silobolsa has become one of those classic tribulations of some characters who, performing solvency and ignorance, they attribute to him the macroeconomic calamities from which society suffers. Of course, in tandem with soybeans, the cursed yuyo.

Gentlemen, soybeans and silobolsa are on the good side. They are one of the few healthy things that have happened to us, despite so much nonsense, one of which is precisely demonize what has allowed this country not to be blown to pieces yet. But the jug goes so much to the fountain that it eventually breaks.

I remember in my beginnings in agricultural journalism, exactly 50 years ago, that the classic of every year was the lack of storage. In times of National Wheat Council, the silo capacity did not reach 30 million tons, enough to store the entire crop. But during the harvest there were bottlenecks and the solution was to throw the beans outdoors, in large piles, or simply keep them on top of the trucks, with endless lines at the ports.

What was missing most was “Farm storage”. Soft loans were requested so that producers could build facilities, which was also a way for farmers not to have to deliver goods and lose control of their business.

But conventional silos were very expensive and paid for themselves in 30 to 40 years.. Who could build it were the collectors, intermediaries between the producers and the JNG. Exporters could not have ports or silos, they could only buy from the state entity. It is not necessary to make a value judgment, but simply to see the results: minimal investments in plants, and a stagnant field due to a lack of investment in technology.

In the 90s it all came together. Commercial deregulation, elimination of the JNG, added to that “one by one” which allowed for the massive incorporation of technology. And then, an organizational change, in which “landless” societies (popularized as “plantation pools”) emerged. The Second Revolution of the Pampas broke out. In just a decade, between 1995 and 2005, we went from 45 to 90 million tons. Nobody in the world had gotten that tall.

The locomotive was made of soy. The state-of-the-art technology was direct seeding, a world first: less fuel consumption, but also less need to “go” through the lot, reducing soil erosion. But the production barrage had to be stopped. The grinding plants have arrived, installed on the Paraná River north and south of Rosario. This eased the storage problem a lot.

And the silobolsa came. It was a huge logistic solutionwhich has been implemented by both manufacturers and collectors and port terminals. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been saved on matches.

It was a virtuous circle. Soybeans, silobolsa, direct sowing. Greater productivity, reduction of logistics costs, less environmental impact. Freedom to trade, without being bound to deliver the production due to lack of storage. It was a paradigm shift that some “on the other side of the bar” didn’t like. When the exit from convertibility came, the peasants sat on the silobolsa to avoid the weighting of their farms. There was no shortage of people who advised “rain of arrows”, imitating scenes from the movie “Troy”, on the bill at that time … The system spread all over the world. Argentine silobag producers are the largest consumers of plastic supplies in the country. They export value-added polyethylene. And when we export soy or its derivatives, we also export silobolsa, which is polyethylene, Argentine labor in processing and transport, in bagging and extraction machines.

More respect for the silobolsa, which is on the good side. (Oh, I forgot: the soy inside is from the producers)