Agriculture in Argentina

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Agriculture is one of the bases of Argentina's economy. Since its formal organization as a national entity in the second half of the 19th century, the country followed an agricultural and livestock export model of development with a large concentration of crops in the fertile Pampas, mainly in the southern Mesopotamia (the littoral of the rivers Paraná-Plata and Uruguay) and the center and north of Buenos Aires Province. This almost exclusive primary development was mitigated only after World War I and especially after the 1930s, by the introduction of manufacturing industries to achieve import substitution.^[1]

In 2004, more than one third of the Argentine exports of about US$34,000 million were composed of primary agricultural products, mainly soybean.^[2]

The national governmental organization in charge of overseeing agriculture is the Secretariat of Agriculture, Cattle Farming, Fishing and Food (Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Pesca y Alimentos, SAGPyA).^[3]

1 Production per commodity
2 Agricultural production
- 2.1 20 most harvested commodities by quantity produced
- 2.2 20 most cultivated commodities by area harvested
3 References

[edit] Production per commodity

All data referred to 2004 information by the FAO.

Around 3% of the country is cultivated, while big part of it is used for cattle and other livestocks.

[edit] Cereals

The main production and exports of the country are cereals, centered around soybean wheat and sorghum for export, as well as rice and barley mainly for national consume. With a total area of around 210.000 km², the annual production of cereals is around 50 million tonnes.

[edit] Oilseeds

Oilseeds became important with the raise of the international price in the late 20th century. Of the 18.2 million tonnes produced annually, around 80% belongs to maize and 15% to sunflower seeds. The total cultivated area for oilseeds is around 41.000 km².

[edit] Meat

Meat is one of the most important export product of Argentina. of the over 4 million tonnes of meat, around two thirds correspond to cattle not counting 500.000 tonnes of edible offal. Then follows in importance chicken meat with 785.000 tonnes, pig with 150.000, and sheep and goat with 60.000. Cattle is mainly raised in the provinces of Buenos Aire and Santa Fe, specially that for exportation.

[edit] Fruits

Together with lemmon, apples and Pears are the most important fruit products, produced mainly at the Río Negro valleys of Río Negro Province and Neuquén Province, as well as in the Mendoza Province. Other important cultives include peaches and other citruses. With an area of around 6.000 km², the fruit production is around 8 million annual tonnes.

[edit] Sugar cane

The sugar cane production and derivates, mainly cultivated in the Tucumán Province, is of around 19 million annual tonnes, with a covered area of 3.000 km². There are also sugar-cane factories (ingenios azucareros) for the production of sugar and cellulose.

[edit] Cotton

The annual production of around 190 thousand tonnes provided by the 2.5 km² planted comes mainly from Formosa Province. Nevetheless, the cotton cultivated area has been reduced in the last decade because of low international prices due to the use of artificial fabrics.

[edit] Milk

Milk production is of around 8 million annual tonnes. Its production, as well as the assiciated diary industry, favoured by the Argentine economic crisis of 2001 that placed production costs way below the international price. This incremented the milk and diary product exports, but also raised their local prices.

[edit] Vegetables

Vegetables, mainly potatoes, onions and tomatoes, are cultivated all over the country, almost exclusivelly for local the internal market. Other important products include sweetpotato, pumpkins, carrots, beans, peppers and garlic. An approximate area of 3.000 km² produces over five million tonnes of vegetable every year.

[edit] Sea products

Fishes and other sea fruits are less important to the export economy, and are not widely consumed by Argentines. Most of the 900.000 tonnes fished is frozen and exported. The most important product is hake (merlucciidae), followed by Cephalopod (squid) and other molluscs and Crustaceans.

[edit] Agricultural production

Production as of 2004 (FAO ^[4]). Quantities in thousands of tonnes, areas in thousands of hectares.

[edit] 20 most harvested commodities by quantity produced

Rank	Commodities	Quantity produced	Area harvested	Yield per hectar
1	Soybeans	31'500.00	14'371.00	2.19
2	Sugar Cane and Sugar crops, nec	19'300.00	305.00	63.28
3	Maize	15'000.00	2'330.96	6.44
4	Wheat	14'560.00	5'735.03	2.54
5	Milk, whole, fresh	8'100.00	0.00	0.00
6	Sunflower seed	3'100.00	1'822.00	1.70
7	Bovine meat (incl. cattle and buffalo)	3'024.00	0.00	0.00
8	Grapes	2'365.00	208.00	11.37
9	Sorghum	2'160.00	475.00	4.55
10	Potatoes	2'021.02	70.01	28.87
11	Lemons and limes	1'300.00	45.00	28.89
12	Apples	1'262.44	40.00	31.56
13	Rice, paddy	1'060.00	169.21	6.26
14	Barley	1'004.00	333.83	3.01
15	Chicken meat	785.00	0.00	0.00
16	Oranges	770.00	58.00	13.28
17	Onions, green and ripe	699.48	25.00	27.98
18	Tomatoes	675.00	17.33	38.94
19	Vegetables, nec	649.07	53.50	12.13
20	Demersal fish	596.79	0.00	0.00

[edit] 20 most cultivated commodities by area harvested

Rank	Commodities	Area harvested	Quantity produced	Yield per hectar
1	Soybeans	14'371.00	31'500.00	2.19
2	Wheat	5'735.03	14'560.00	2.54
3	Maize	2'330.96	15'000.00	6.44
4	Sunflower seed	1'822.00	3'100.00	1.70
5	Sorghum	475.00	2'160.00	4.55
6	Barley	333.83	1'004.00	3.01
7	Sugar Cane and Sugar crops, nec	305.00	19'300.00	63.28
8	Cottonseed	253.20	190.00	0.75
9	Oats	230.12	348.00	1.51
10	Grapes	208.00	2'365.00	11.37
11	Tea and Mate	192.00	354.00	1.84
12	Rice, paddy	169.21	1'060.00	6.26
13	Groundnuts	76.56	418.57	5.47
14	Potatoes	70.01	2'021.02	28.87
15	Oranges	58.00	770.00	13.28
16	Vegetables, nec	53.50	649.07	12.13
17	Lemons and limes	45.00	1'300.00	28.89
18	Apples	40.00	1'262.44	31.56
19	Rye	38.86	37.00	0.95
20	Olives	33.50	103.00	3.07