Agricultural innovations in Argentina

Dr. Martin Schneider, Managing Director of IAK Agrar Consulting GmbH, found out about innovations in Argentinian agriculture on-site last week. He traveled to Córdoba as part of the "German-Argentine Dialogue on Sustainable Agricultural Innovations" project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and implemented by IAK. Together with project leader Marnix Doorn, project colleague Edgard Ramirez and Dr. Christoph Neitzel, advisor for agriculture and food at the German embassies in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, he completed a varied travel program:

• At the 3rd International Corn Congress in Córdoba with 4,000 participants, Dr. Schneider gave a presentation on the status of digitalization in German agriculture. In a subsequent panel, the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices, the relevance of AgTech ecosystems and German initiatives in agricultural digitalization were discussed.
• At the INTA national experimental station in Manfredi, the project is currently working on a project on sustainable digital crop production under Argentinian conditions. The data collected is to be compared with experimental data from Germany to learn from each other bilaterally and introduce new cultivation strategies into practice more quickly.
• Dr. Schneider also visited the agricultural machinery manufacturer CLAAS, which has been active in Argentina for 24 years and operates a plant with a final assembly line for combine harvesters and forage harvesters in Oncativo. CLAAS is the market leader for forage harvesters in Argentina. The combine harvesters run there for around 2,000 hours a year, more than twice as long as in Germany, due to two harvests in some cases.
• In a meeting with local authorities, more precisely with Marcos Blanda, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Marcelo Calle, Minister of Livestock, from the Ministry of Agrobioindustry of Córdoba, the next work priorities for strengthening cooperation in the project with the province were outlined.
• Another item on the program was a visit to a farm with a feedlot, where weaners are fattened with alfalfa hay and corn until they are ready for slaughter.

Argentine agriculture has suffered from extreme drought and higher temperatures in recent years, which has weakened many farms economically. The enormous inflation and export taxes on agricultural products make life even more difficult for producers.

IAK is looking forward to further cooperation in the project and to learning together about innovations in the various production systems in Argentina and Germany.