Argentina's 'King of Soy' abdicates in favour of biotechnology

Buenos Aires

THE company that led the breakneck expansion of Argentine soy cultivation over the last two decades has quietly reduced the area it farms by more than half as inflation, trade restrictions and high taxes drain growers' profits.

Los Grobo, once known as the South American country's "King of Soy" has abdicated that throne in favour of what company president Gustavo Grobocopatel deems the future: biotechnology. "Farming in Argentina is barely profitable, or unprofitable, because costs have gone up, grain prices have gone down and the tax burden is exorbitant," he said. "It's become subsistence farming." Among Argentine farmers' problems are double-digit inflation, heavy foreign currency and import controls; a strict quota system for exporting corn and wheat; and a 35 per cent tax on soybean exports.