A group of self-convened rural producers marched this saturday for the downtown Buenos Airessome of them on tractors, to protest against the ppolicies of the Argentine government that they consider detrimental to the agricultural sector.
The caravan, made up of thirty tractors along with hundreds of cars, motorcycles and other vehicles, advanced through the avenues of the north of the capital until it reached the iconic Plaza de Mayo, in front of the headquarters of the National Executive Power of Argentina.
More than a thousand people gathered in this place to culminate the act of protest, which had echoes in other cities of the country, such as Córdoba, Tucumán or Rosario.
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This “tractor coup” did not have the institutional endorsement of the so-called Link Table made up of the four largest rural employers’ associations in Argentina, although it did have the support of some regional agricultural entities and sectors of the political opposition.
The grounds for the protest are diverse: in addition to reject any tax pressure On the rural sector, the conveners called for better public administration of resources, less political spending and greater investment in productive infrastructure, among other points.
Likewise, a large number of citizens took advantage of the occasion to take to the streets and express their rejection of the national government, with proclamations against political corruption and in favor of lowering taxes.
A “political march”
In recent days, the Argentine government has questioned the protest, arguing that its slogans “are not very clear.”
“We have no doubt that It is an absolutely political march and that it has to do with other interests than defending the legitimate rights of rural producers,” presidential spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti said at a press conference this Friday.
For his part, the mayor of Buenos Aires, the opposition Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, asked that the national government “respect” these protests, instead of “promoting confrontations” between workers.
“Given the expectation of the announcement that they want to increase taxes, how are they not going to demonstrate, how are we not going to support them? This is the engine and the future of Argentina,” he asserted in statements to the TN news channel.
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The protest takes place in the context of a sharp rise in international prices of raw materials since the Russian invasion of Ukraine that favors agro-exporters from Argentina, one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of grains and derivatives, but that has had a full impact on an acceleration of domestic inflation, particularly in food.
Beyond this situation derived from the war in Ukraine, the Argentine agricultural sector has maintained a difficult relationship with the Kirchnerist governments since 2008, particularly due to the high rates of export duties on grains and derivatives, an important source of revenue for the Argentine Treasury.
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