Food Politics

About two weeks after I arrived the entire country of Argentina went into crisis mode… culprit, MEAT. As it’s been explained to me it goes something like this: during Nestor Kirchner’s presidency (that just ended last December) farmers were allowed to export unprecedented amounts of food stuffs because crop yields were extremely high and prices were favorable to the consumption of Argentinean products around the world. This left farmers and everyone involved in transporting and exporting the food very rich while Argentineans were eating what was essentially the leftovers that their land had produced as all the best product was shipped abroad. Recently, the current president Cristina Kirchner (yes, his wife) substantially reduced the amount farmers could export stating that the Argentine people were going hungry while farmers got rich. As could be imagined farmers were instantly up in arms as they sought to lose tons of money with this deal. They started striking and blocked important transport routes all across the country so that food couldn’t be shipped out from the countryside. The most problematic part of this conflict was the fact that meat couldn’t be delivered….

Now, if the country was made up of Alysons this wouldn’t be a problem at all. Whenever I tell my friends here that in the US I might eat meat every 3 days or so they cringe at the thought. Argentina without beef would be like the US without peanut butter :) or maybe apple pie. Anyhow, it was very interesting to see how everyone reacted to almost empty shelves, mostly meat and dairy products were virtually gone for about a week and a half and what was available was very expensive. One egg cost one peso which is about 30 cents – a lot! After some negotiations the government decided to allow farmers to keep exporting at their previous rates but only for a month while a new deal was worked out. This week the month is up so we’ll see what happens. At least for now meat has been plentiful and I’m continuing to stock up on all the iron and protein I’ll need for the next two years.