For every dollar, 3 in 6 months; the promise of fertilizers

This edition of Rural trumpet includes, as a central theme, a special report on fertilizers. They constitute a essential tool for the development of agricultural production, from two converging segments: performance and sustainability.

During the first hundred years of agricultural progress in our pampas, the idea of ​​infinite fertility accumulated. The legend began early: when the men of Gaboto (founders of Fort Sancti Spiritu in 1527, the first permanent settlement on American soil, nine years before the first foundation of Buenos Aires) they planted a few grains of wheat and received 10 grains each. They rightly attributed it to the enormous fertility of the earth.

When the time came to tame the land, with the fundamental goal of planting alfalfa for livestock, the agricultural era began. the gringos arrived with tools and virgin lands they delivered waves of flax, wheat and wheat. We were the granary of the world.

But fertility traveled with the grains. We have not only exported wheat, but also nitrogen, phosphorus, potassiumand the entire table by Dimitri Mendeleev. But the ship was. Seed genetics have been adapted to decline in fertility. The same happened with the issue of diseases and insects. We were looking for resistance in the germplasm. So much that if it was sown in very high fertility, the grain “went vice”. He basked, nitrogen produced plants but not grain.

The world has taken another path. It was called the “Green Revolution”which earned him the Nobel Prize for Peace and Immortality a Norman Borlaug. Their wheat varieties incorporated Japanese dwarfing genes (“Norin 10”), thus preventing housing. Here, from the hand of the great disciple of Borlaug, Ruggero FoganteThey arrived in the late 1960s. The first was the Marcos Juárez INTA.

Fertilization began, albeit with a dropper. At the same time, phosphorus awareness has reached the pastures. The first thing was to apply ground phosphate rock, heavily promoted by the Balcarce Livestock Development Plan. Pastures of white clover with “hyperphosphate” have marked time.

But the numbers didn’t work. There was a huge gap between the price of the input and the price of the product to be obtained. Low international prices, but above all tariff and exchange rate differentials, explained the lack of interest in any technological input. It was still produced on the basis of the earth. In other words, fertility continued to be exported.

With the one to one of the 90s, the technological equation allowed us to exit the extensive model (terrestrial base) and enter the era of intensification (technological input base). But the genetics have not been adapted. Until 1995, INTA claimed that corn hybrids did not respond to fertilizers.

Simple hybrids, with toothed germplasm, have arrived from gene banks in the United States. A phenomenal leap. In 10 years we have gone from a national yield of 35 quintals, to the current 80 as a national average. With peaks of 150 when the planets line up and all the meat is put on the grill.

French genetics has arrived in wheat, which has totally imposed itself for the same reason: response to good nutrition. There were other technologies that accompanied, but the killer combination was genetics plus nutrition.

After, we again influenced the input / output relationship. The retentions and the export restrictions agricultural prices have worsened e more kilos of grain are needed to pay for a kilo of fertilizer. And what’s more, now, the clouds appear on the horizon of providence. Local factories struggle with the cost and availability of their own inputs (gas). Importers have a hard time obtaining foreign currency. is one of the hottest and most urgent topics.

Every dollar in fertilizer turns into at least $ 3 in just 6 months.