(9 May 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Various of truck passing along road, past protesting farmers
2. Security personnel on road speaking to official
3. Security personnel walking past parked truck by road
4. Wide of trucks parked on road
5. Truck driving past protesting farmers
6. Various of combine harvester working in field
7. Set ups of of farmer, Javier Talomone
8. Combine harvester working in field
9. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Javier Talomone, farmer:
"We are going to keep the grains as a form of protest, so they can't be exported, and to see if there is any improvement, or a negotiation in which we can form a business plan for the future that is profitable. Today, with these taxes, we cannot keep harvesting all the different products for a profitability that allows you to keep going forward."
10. Various of fields
STORYLINE
Argentine farmers continued their protest on Friday against higher export taxes on soybeans and other grains, after negotiations with the government failed.
Argentina's Chief of Staff Alberto Fernandez, the government's main representative in the negotiations with the farmer's unions, said on Friday the farmers had "lost a great opportunity" this week to resolve the conflict.
But the striking farmers seem determined to stay put until their demands are met.
"We are going to keep the grains as a form of protest, so they can't be exported, and to see if there is any improvement, or a negotiation in which we can form a business plan for the future that is profitable," farmer Javier Talomone told AP Television.
"Today, with these taxes, we cannot keep harvesting all the different products for a profitability that allows you to keep going forward."
Argentina's four main farmers unions announced on Wednesday they were launching a second round of protests after negotiations with Cristina Fernandez's government failed.
Farmers mobilised alongside a key rural trade corridor in Gualeguaychu to ensure the suspension of both exports and domestic shipments of grains, but they stopped short of calling for a full-blown strike similar to one in March and early April.
During the earlier 21-day work stoppage, the country's worst ever, farmers burned tyres and erected spiked barricades along highways, blocking trucks, strangling shipments of beef and produce and causing shortages in Argentine cities nationwide.
The farmers reached a truce with President Fernandez's centre-left government on April 2, but vowed to resume the protests if the administration did not compromise.
The anti-tax protests mark the biggest domestic crisis confronting Fernandez's five-month-old administration.
Four main farm groups overseeing the strike accused Fernandez of failing to heed their plea to roll back soybean export taxes of up to 45 percent and a range of tax hikes for other grains.
Fernandez, who took office in December, said the new taxes will help distribute among poorer Argentines gains that soaring commodity prices are bringing farmers.
A quarter of the country's 40 (m) million people are still mired in poverty after a 2002 economic meltdown.
But farmers insist the taxes are too high and leaving them slim profits.
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