Tractor outbreak in old Europe and sustainability

In an extraordinary movement, European farmers have doubled down on their protest against the removal of some subsidies. And also against pressure from the “greens”which leaves them with fewer tools and, consequently, makes them less competitive. A combo in which there is everything, like in a pharmacy. We see.

There is a certain tendency in the Argentine agricultural sector to sympathize with the protest of European colleagues. It is reasonable and even humane. But careful: the background of the issue is the corporate interest to be defended a system that has impacted (and has an impact on) our own economy. This results in subsidies for agriculture (in this case European, but involving all developed countries). excess supply. And oversupply leads to unfair competition on international markets: surpluses are generated which are then used for export, with new explicit or implicit subsidies.

To complete the “model” there are restrictions on the import of agricultural products. This results in pressure from European farmers, particularly French strong import duties and a polychromatic palette of tariff measures. To give just one example: the famous Hilton quota is not only limited (28,000 tons of beef) but it is not even exempt from levies. It just pays less than the non-quota fee, but it pays.

Furthermore there is the environmental component. High prices have led to the hypertrophy of fertilizer consumption, triggering the phenomenon of eutrophication, which is evident throughout the Old World. The excess nutrients supplied, not used by the plants, flow into the lagoons through surface or deep waterways, altering their microflora. This exacerbated green activism, which later spread, sparking the technophobic paraphernalia for which farmers all over the world pay today.

The current wave of protests originated in removes a diesel subsidy. It’s a drop of water in the ocean, but the measure is going in the right direction. First of all because it involves a reduction in subsidies.

Secondly, France…

Third: it’s going in the right direction because European agriculture is dependent on oil. Nobody worries, objectively, about the reduction of work. Since the industrial revolution, just a century and a half ago, they have developed an armamentarium of soil torture instruments. They dismantled everything, put into production everything that was at hand. And with their ancestral practices they squandered the organic matter present in the soil in just a few decades.

Romulus almost founded Rome 2,777 years. He marked the perimeter with a plow. He was a farmer. It’s been almost 3,000 years and they still use the same thing. I had already told you that at the Agritechnic in Hannover last November, half of the surface was dedicated to the display of agricultural tools, such as absurd reversible plows (there are two bodies, one works on the outward journey and the other on the return journey), to throw the dirty bread on the same side). That is, the tractor continuously carries a huge ballast, hanging on the three-point lift. To prevent it from tipping over, it must be ballasted forward. More kilos, more compaction, more diesel.

And less land. All the carbon went into the air. It is true that agriculture (that European agriculture) has its part responsibility for climate change. It has contributed to the increase in CO2 content in the air. And it continues to waste tons of oil, both as fuel and fuel excess fertilizer and nitrous oxide coming from forced breeding.

Careful. The pressure from farmers seeks to support a model that is impracticable from an economic and environmental point of view. This leads, linearly, to greater protectionism. In the mobilizations the focus is on efficient agriculture. There is pressure not to sign the EU-Mercosur agreementThat He was about to leave but now he is in danger.

There are many who, in the Argentine agricultural sector, see the environmental issue as a risk. When in reality it’s an opportunity. We have not yet sufficiently communicated the underlying issue: in these pampas we reversed the story of Rómulo, signing the death certificate of the plow four decades ago. We build, with technology, the most efficient agriculture in the world from an economic and environmental point of view. Unbeatable water footprint and carbon footprint.

The president of Aapresid, Marcelo Torres, has a vast international agenda. The head of the IICA, the Argentinian Manuel Otero, is fighting the cause of regenerative agriculture in our region. The del direct sowingTHE biotechnology, the use of inoculants, the progress of bioeconomy. It’s over there.