Argentina-Farm Strike over farmers say they are ready to talk.

ARGENTINA-FARMERS SAY THEY ARE PREPARED TO TALK.

Farmers locked in a fierce year-long dispute with the administration over export duties yesterday celebrated as a "complete success" a week-long grain and cattle sales boycott due to expire last night, once again rejecting allegations that they were seeking to topple Peronist President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and vowing to continue pressing their cause in Congress.

At a press conference in the headquarters of the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), the leaders of the country’s four largest farm lobbies said that their seventh protest in a year was aimed at forcing the President to lower — not to eliminate — export duties had been a "complete success in the trade field." Also, they highlighted the mostly peaceful protests staged by grass-roots in about 100 sites throughout many provinces. During the protest started last Friday there have been some scuffles between farmers and truck drivers, that were a factor in the Catholic Church’s warning that social peace was in jeopardy.

The farm leaders dismissed government allegations that they have been staging roadblocks, by retorting that there were only some delays as farmers were checking that only truckloads with perishable goods reached markets. Striking farmers blocked any possible grain or cattle truckload from proceeding.

Farmers last night also decided to lift a roadblock on national Route 14 in Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos province.

SRA chairman Hugo Biolcati said: "we are not coup-mongers. We defend institutions that are being permanently violated such as the duty revenue sharing (between the federal and provincial governments) via a decree or by the government’s refusal to allow quorum in Congress."

Mrs. Kirchner last week announced that her administration would start sharing 30 percent of soybean revenue with provinces and municipalities in a move that farmers rejected as a provocation as it failed to lower duties. A Congressional bi-party committee in charge of Legislative Affairs yesterday approved the decree aimed at using shared soybean revenue to launch public works funds in the provinces. Argentina is the third largest exporter of soybean, which is its main export product.

"All this chatter about a coup is just in the mind of Néstor Kirchner," said Eduardo Buzzi, one of the country’s best-known leaders, referring to the former president who is also the husband of Mrs. Kirchner and chairs the Peronist party.

Ricardo Buryaile, vice-president of the Argentine Rural Confederation (CRA), said that the government announced the duty revenue sharing measure now that revenue is estimated to fall to six billion dollars, but that it failed to do so when revenue last year was expected to reach 15 billion dollars. Farmers claim that the move to share duty revenue is actually aimed at "buying out" governors and mayors ahead of the mid-term vote.

Biolcati said that farmers "have now learnt to measure our reaction to prevent falling into the government’s provocation."

Buryaile said that those who were actually coup-mongering were Peronist leaders such as Emilio Pérsico, who said that if the government loses the mid-term vote that it on Thursday brought forward three months to June 28, Mrs. Kirchner would have to hand over power to Vice-President Julio Cobos. Cobos is a dissident Radical who the President implied was a traitor for his having sided with farmers. Pérsico later recanted. Last year the President accused farmers of seeking to topple her.

Also, Biolcati said that Mrs. Kirchner seemed "ill informed" when she accused farm pickets for the death of a girl in Chaco whose own mother, the next day, admitted that the girl had been taken to a hospital without any obstacle. On Thursday night Buzzi said that the President’s assertion in that regard was simply "a lie."

Farm leaders praised grassroots for their abiding by the four lobbies’ instructions not to block roads and said that the fact that this time there were "only" 100 road protests and not 400 as last year at the peak of the farm crisis, was due to the fact that roadblocks "are no longer necessary."

Farmers have been hit by plummeting international grain prices and an unprecedented drought at home but they mostly blame bad government policies for the country’s heading to harvest this year 70 million tons of grain versus 98 million last season.

They said that the government was using the international crisis as a pretext and the Argentine economic crisis started way before the international one.

Farmers yesterday said that although they had already planned a new meeting with Production Minister Débora Giorgi next Tuesday, they would send her a formal request yesterday. But they said that so far ministers — who met them after refusing to do so for seven months — were actually not empowered to negotiate. Farmers warned that if there are no solutions to their demands they could stage new sales boycotts.

They have also requested a special session of the Lower House for the week starting on April 13. They celebrated that they last week managed to clinch the support of 108 opposition deputies, which, however, were still 21 short of quorum.