(3 Apr 2018) Jorge Josifovich is silent and downcast as he walks under the pounding sun in one of Argentina's most-fertile agricultural regions, staring at soy crops parched by the country's worst drought in years.
The drought, which began in November, has caused big losses, reduced expectations of economic growth, and raised concerns among farmers, government officials and experts in the world's third-largest exporter of soybean and corn.
"It's dramatic," said Josifovich, a farmer and agricultural engineer who provides advice to growers. He picked up soy seeds from a plant that stands at nearly half its normal height.
"Not only is there the physical loss of grain yield, but there's also the loss of quality, which lowers the product's final price."
That's a blow to Argentina, where farming is the economy's main engine, and high or low prices for soy and other commodities can either help sustain or bust government investment plans.
President Mauricio Macri was also counting on a near-record soy crop this year to boost economic growth to 3.5 percent in 2018.
Instead, what is expected to be the poorest harvest in at least a decade has already cut growth forecasts by up to a percentage point.
While Macri struggles to reduce the country's high fiscal deficit and tame inflation, Argentines continue to lose purchasing power to consumer prices, and many are growing increasingly frustrated with rises in fuel and transportation costs.
The value of grain exports this year could be cut by up to 3.4 billion US dollars as a result of the drought, according to recent estimates by the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange. But the impact could be even more bruising if other related industries are taken into account.
Argentina's famed meat and dairy industries, which depend on corn and soymeal for animal feed, are facing more than 600 million US dollars in losses, according to the exchange.
The drought has also hurt the poultry and pork sectors, the silos that store grains, and the trucking and shipping companies that transport them worldwide.
"You'll have less beef and a problem with (a rise) in prices," said about the outlook for next year. He said that the consumption of Argentine gasoil will also be reduced by 2.5 percent in 2018. And about a million fewer trucks will be used to transport grains in 2018 versus last year because of the drought. That translates into an estimated 1.1 billion US dollars in losses.
Soy makes up more than a third of all Argentine exports, and Argentina is the world's top supplier of soy oil and meal.
"This is directly hitting our pockets," said Alejandro Calderon, the president of the farming group Rural Society of Pergamino, as he inspected soy plants with Josifovich at a field about 140 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of the Argentine capital. Badly-needed rains expected in recent days never came.
Argentina has been hit by severe droughts in the past. The last one in 2008, killed thousands of cows, cut grains output, and stirred growing discontent among farmers who complained about what they said was a harmful government policy and a lack of aid for the agricultural industry.
This time around, Macri has announced that his government would provide debt relief to drought-hit farmers, including delaying maturities on agricultural loans and extending new credit lines with longer grace periods so that growers can continue buying tools and other equipment needed to tend their crops.
After years of suffering a string of floods and droughts that have destroyed their crops, many farmers are demanding insurance that can once and for all protect them from the inclement weather.
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