Argentina-Farmers vow to fight on.

Farmers could resume roadside protests tomorrow if the Lower House fails to debate a reduction in soybean export duties today, the farming leaders’ Liaison Committee, which met at the Coninagro headquarters yesterday, said. The crisis was prompted last year by an abrupt increase in government-sponsored grain export duties which was eventually thrown out by Congress. But Deputy Agustín Rossi, the head of the ruling party’s caucus in the Lower House, said that his party will not grant the 129-vote quorum needed for the 257-seat Lower House session to open. Still, opposition leaders said they had secured the presence of 100 legislators and were confident they would attain the minimum votes required.

Also yesterday, the government sent conciliatory signals to the farmers following the failure of Tuesday’s meeting between their Liaison Committee and government officials to hammer out consensus on the soybean and related issues. Cabinet Chief Sergio Massa said he believed farming leaders "have the right to knock at Congress’ door" and submit a draft bill including a reduction in grain export duties with opposition leaders "should the former feel that the government has failed to provide suitable answers".

Justice Minister Aníbal Fernández also joined the conciliatory drive and announced that the Border Guard would not clamp down demonstrations provided farmers put up roadblocks to demand a reduction in soybean export duties. "You don’t get out of a crisis with injured people or fatalities but with people seating at a table to discuss," Fernández added.

In a radio interview, Rossi said his fellow ruling party deputies would not attend the Lower House session because "farm leaders are flying election campaign flags". But Rural Society president Hugo Biolcati said the harsh criticism flung at farmers by Peronist Party leader and former President Néstor Kirchner on Tuesday night was meant "to steer attention away from the hottest issues in everyday life."

The meeting at Coninagro had gathered the main farming association leaders as well as a number of farming experts and legal advisors. Sources at the meeting, which was held without media presence, said farmers would have to devise a new action plan after the Peronist bloc announced it would not grant quorum in the Lower House to discuss a reduction in the grain export fees applicable to wheat, maize, soya beans and sunflower.

Rossi also said the Lower House meeting would merely amount to "a special session with a great deal of political fireworks". The government, Rossi added, would "continue to pursue dialogue" to arrive at a solution to the farming crisis. "We support dialogue even though we might not reach agreement on all the items," he added.

On entering the meeting at the Coninagro headquarters yesterday, Biolcati said he felt frustrated because "the government officials and us are living in two different worlds." Ideally, he added, farming leaders and the government should discuss the ongoing crisis but the ruling party’s legislators had been given instructions "not to show up and grant quorum" for tomorrow’s session."

Biolcati further added that the Liaison Committee would try to agree on a new action plan and the role to be played by farmers who were bound to go back to the roadside and probably put up roadblocks while the Lower House discusses a reduction in soybean export duties "with or without quorum" by the ruling party bloc.

The Rural Society head once again insisted on the need to agree with the government on "a complete shift in the farming policy". He also underlined that while dialogue with the government continues, every time farming leaders meet with Planning Ministry officials "we speak about farming issues and they give us peripheral answers."

In related comments, Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo called for the ongoing farming crisis to be "de-dramatized" and underlined that the only thing in the government officials’ minds was "President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s instructions to solve the conflict." Randazzo explained that meetings between the farming bodies and the government had been positive so far even though "some of our goals have not been secured."

In another radio interview, Randazzo stood by the government’s view that a reduction in soybean export duties would eat into funding for other national needs. Randazzo however conceded that soybean export duties were not the only source of funding for the Government.

Following the meeting at Coninagro, Argentine Farming Federation leader Eduardo Buzzi urged members of the Lower House to meet and discuss the export duties issue tomorrow.

Meanwhile opposition leaders and farming representatives held a press conference at Congress yesterday. Entre Ríos Agrarian Federation leader Alfredo de Ángeli said the ongoing farming crisis was crippling vast expanses of inland Argentina.

The bill jointly drafted between the farming sector and 18 opposition blocs calls for grain export duties to be fixed solely by Congress and for a reduction from 35 percent to 25 percent in soybean exports above 1,000 tons, below which no export duties would be applicable. The draft also calls for changes in Customs regulations.

Randazzo however ratified the government’s stance of not lowering soybean export duties, saying such a move would wipe almost 15 billion pesos off the national budget. "In that case, who should we stop funding teachers or pensioners?, he asked.