ARGENTINA – Ex-President Cristina Kirchner runs for vice president in October 2019 (May 18, 2019).
Former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has announced on Saturday 18th May she will stand as a vice-presidential candidate in national elections later this year. A surprise move as she was widely expected to be the main challenger to President Mauricio Macri. She was perceived as the biggest threat to Mr Macri, although many remain wary of turning back to the leftist who brought in currency controls and raised taxes on farm exports when she was president.
The leading person on the ticket is Alberto Fernandez, who was chief staff in the government of Kirchner’s late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner. Mr Fernandez retained the office for part of Cristina Kirchner’s first term but he left the post after a steep economic crisis took hold. He was then expressing strong critics against her. He is considered a moderate within the broad Peronist political flank.
Mrs Kirchner decision to pursue the position of second-in-command reflects possible doubts over whether she is best positioned to challenge Macri directly in light of a series of looming corruption trials.
Mrs Kirchner has been accused of taking bribes in exchange for public work contracts, but she denies. In separate cases, she faces several formal investigations into allegations of bribery, money laundering and criminal association during her administration and that of her husband. The list goes on and on.
The news astonished some within her own Peronist movement: Former president, Eduardo Duhalde, said he thought it was “a joke” when he first heard.
Paraguay – Flooding from torrential rains causes emergency in Paraguay (May 9, 2019).
Over 40,000 Paraguayans have been forced to evacuate their homes so far due to rising waters. Torrential rains continue to swell rivers and cause floods. More than 11,000 people have been evacuate in the capital of Asuncion since May 4, 2019 and Paraguay declared a state of emergency in the province along the border with Argentina.
At the farm, which is located in the South of the country (330 Km from Asuncion and 100 Km from Encarnacion), we are also suffering from the heavy rains and facing floods in some area. Between May 5 and May 6, we have registered 335 mm of rain. Soils are completely saturated with water.
As a direct consequence, the access from the main road to the farm is impossible and we had to post pound rice delivery to our clients as trucks cannot enter or exit from farm. Channels and fields have to be drained again (they should be empty currently to perform maintenance). Internal roads are also affected as well as the main water pump station (the pumps are removable via a lifting system and electrical system are on the upper floor).
Ongoing activities are all delayed as long as water drains off. However, no serious material damage has to be reported so far (harvest was completed and safely stored in our silos) and all the personal living at the farm or nearby is safe which is the most important. Certain people might consider us lucky as other activities (soybean, corn, cattle, etc) are more heavily impacted by the situation.
ARGENTINA – Update on Tata Cua forest activities (April 2019).
Situation/weather: After having faced a very wet period from November to January (2 times more than the historical average for those months-502 mm), the situation was normalised in February and in March.
Forestry activity: Our 750 hectares (ha) forest is planted by 580 ha of trees: we have around 145 ha of eucalyptus, 427 ha of pine trees and 6 ha of grevillea. Minor cuts are forecasted this year given the maturity of the trees. However and until cutes occur, the forest has maintenance and cleaning requirements. Internal maintenance as well as the section bordering roads have been cleaned to prevent from fire have been performed.
Paraguay – End of harvest and beginning of rice delivery (April 2019).
Harvest is now completed and the final plots where harvested on April 16th. Drying process of the production is almost completed to. It is the most critical operation after harvesting a rice crop. Drying reduces grain moisture content to a safe level for storage. When rice is harvested, it will contain up to 25% moisture. High moisture level during storage can lead to grain discoloration, encourage development of molds, and increase the likelihood of attack from pests. Therefore, any delays in drying reduce grain quality and result in losses.
Based on preliminary results, around 11,000 tons of paddies have been produced for this campaign with a high index of quality (58 to 60%). We are pleased with those preliminary results given the dense rainfall season registered (please refer to previous post), the low number of brightness days registered during the growing period and low temperature recorded during the growing period of the plants (in relative).
The second lesson is that for this season, opening market price were better than past seasons – we cannot say good but just better (in the range of $170/t for standard quality – farm price). We have started the delivery of our paddy rice to local mills for the export market mainly to Brazil.
In order to free ourselves from Brazil, we are also trying to open new export market.
Paraguay – Rice harvest at Salitre Cue farm (March 2019).
Rice harvest has restarted at the farm. Among the 1,500 ha sowed, we have harvested 540 ha so far, providing a dried yield of 6.8 t/ha with a high quality index (60).
Above the standard quality index of 58, buyers value the quality via an incremental price premium on the market reference price.
Although weather conditions have disrupted our productivity in terms of expected yield, the average national yield is around 6.7 t/ha according to the President of the Paraguayan Chamber of Rice (Caparroz) who judges the campaign “good”.
“Article from La Nacion, dated 02/03/19”
The latest plots sowed still need 10 days of irrigation (around 350 ha), while harvest continue for the remaining surface.
