Tag Archives: Argentina

Weather events breaking records seem to have become the norm: Argentina now having the Hottest winter in 117 years

Winter Buenos Aires

Important Takeaways:

  • It’s winter in Argentina — and it’s the hottest August in 117 years of records
  • The high temperatures arrive within “a context where we are experiencing a winter that, in general, is being very warm,” Fernández said.
  • “The number of cold events we’ve had this winter has been very few, scarce, and the few times we had cold air outbreaks, they lasted for a very short period,” she added.
  • Argentina’s hottest temperature Tuesday afternoon was recorded in the town of Rivadavia in the northern Salta province, where the thermometer hit 37.2 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit) in midafternoon.

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Argentina enhances deal with China; further diminishes role of the dollar

Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Argentina Shuns U.S. Dollar: Will Pay for China Imports in Yuan
  • The measure, driven by Argentina’s leftist President Alberto Fernández, is designed to relieve the South American country’s dwindling dollar reserves, AP reports.
  • The deal further enhances China’s rise on the world stage and the diminished role of the U.S. on a host of fronts under President Joe Biden.
  • After reaching the agreement with various companies, Argentina will use the yuan for imports from China worth about U.S.$1.04 billion from next month, accelerating trade with China as Beijing seeks to gain a further foothold in South America.
  • In November last year Argentina expanded a currency swap with China by $5 billion in an effort to increase its yuan reserves.
  • It has also been working hard to build a relationship with Beijing after having officially joined China’s infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) last year.

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Argentina struggles amid historic drought, lowest crop output since the turn of the century

Luke 21:25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves

Important Takeaways:

  • Argentina’s ‘unprecedented’ drought pummels farmers and economy
  • A historic drought ravaging Argentina’s crops is deepening the grain exporting giant’s economic crisis, crushing farmers across the Pampas, heightening default fears and putting at risk targets agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
  • The South American nation, the world’s top exporter of processed soy and No. 3 for corn, is in the grip of it worst drought in over 60 years, which has led to repeated sharp cuts to soybean and corn harvest forecasts.
  • Those were cut again on Thursday by the Buenos Aires grains exchange after the Rosario exchange slashed its soy production outlook to 27 million tonnes, the lowest since the turn of the century, when far less of the crop was planted.
  • …farmers were facing losses of $14 billion and 50 million tonnes less of grain output across soy, corn and wheat.
  • “It’s unprecedented that the three crops fail. We are all waiting for it to rain,” he added.

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Argentina’s Inflation will reach 60% this year. Locals say you’re lucky if you have two to three jobs

Rev 6:6 NAS And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Argentina inflation surges to decades-high in March, sapping spending power
  • Argentina’s monthly inflation rate soared to 6.7% in March, the government said on Wednesday, far above forecasts and the highest level in two decades as spiraling food and fuel prices dent the value of salaries and savings.
  • Argentina has been battling with high inflation for years with little success. That has been worsened as global commodities prices have climbed over the last year, exacerbated recently by the war in Ukraine.
  • Experts predict Argentina’s inflation will reach nearly 60% this year. That takes a steep toll on Argentines, almost 40% of whom already live in poverty even as a rebound in growth from the coronavirus pandemic has helped reduce that number.
  • “We have no choice. If we are lucky, we can have two or even three jobs. And not even then do we make ends meet because one day products have a certain price and the next day it’s a different one. That really kills people throughout the country.”

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Argentina exchange says dry summer poses ‘big challenge’ for soybeans, corn

By Maximilian Heath

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -Argentina’s weather outlook poses a “big challenge” for soybean and corn production, with lower-than-normal rainfall due to the La Niña climate pattern expected during the region’s summer, the Buenos Aires grains exchange said.

Argentina is the world’s leading exporter of processed soybeans and the second-largest exporter of corn. Farmers are currently sowing soy and corn for the 2021/22 season.

“We are facing a climatic scenario … that poses strong challenges to production,” the exchange said in its monthly climate report posted late on Monday, adding that “the return of the rains could be delayed until mid-March.”

“One of the most damaging effects caused by ‘La Niña’ in the Pampeana Region (the central farming area) and adjacent areas, is to extend the seasonal drought, which normally takes place during January,” it said.

The Buenos Aires exchange expects a record corn harvest of 57 million tonnes and soybean production of 44 million tonnes. Corn sowing is 39.5% complete and soybeans 56.1% finished.

As for 2021/22 wheat, whose harvest ends in January, the exchange raised its harvest estimate last week to a record 21 million tonnes, although it noted in its report that adverse weather could affect the cereal in the weeks ahead.

Applied Climatology Consultancy (CCA) meteorologist Germán Heinzenknecht agreed that the summer season would be dry, with less-than-normal rainfall but said it may not be as dramatic as feared for crops.

“You have to differentiate between the east and the west. The lack of rain is going to be more severe in the agricultural east,” Heinzenknecht told Reuters on Tuesday.

“I don’t think we will have an ideal summer, but there are going to be damp windows,” Heinzenknecht said.

While La Niña causes dryness in central regions of Argentina, it also increases the level of rainfall in the northern provinces, increasing the risk of extreme storms and flooding in the coming months.

This should also boost rains in southern Brazil, refilling the Paraná River, a key grains waterway that carries some 80% of Argentina’s farm exports to the sea. It hit a 77-year low level earlier this year due to a historic drought upriver, hindering transport.

“This will allow the waterway and river ports to be recovered to a great extent, though this will only take place toward the end of the season,” the Buenos Aires exchange added.

(Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Editing by Lucila Sigal, Paul Simao and Mark Porter)

‘Once in 100 years’ drought seen affecting Argentine grains exports into next year

By Hugh Bronstein

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -A once-a-century drought has lowered the water level of Argentina’s main grains transport river, reducing farm exports and boosting logistics costs in a trend that meteorologists said will likely continue into next year.

The South American grains powerhouse is the world’s No. 3 corn supplier and No. 1 exporter of soymeal livestock feed, used to fatten hogs and poultry from Europe to Southeast Asia. Farm exports are Argentina’s main source of hard currency needed to bolster central bank reserves sapped by a three-year recession.

Southern Brazil, source of the Parana River, has been hit by severe dryness for three years. This has reduced water levels in the Argentine ports hub of Rosario, Santa Fe province, where about 80% of the country’s agricultural exports are loaded.

“This is about a once-in-a-hundred-years event. That’s the type of frequency we are looking at,” said Isaac Hankes, a weather analyst at Refinitiv, financial and risk business of Thomson Reuters.

On Monday the United Nations climate panel’s report found that climate change is making extreme weather events more common. One meteorologist told Reuters the situation could “even get worse after the rainy season” set to start in late September.

Ships sailing from Rosario are loading 18% to 25% less cargo than normal due to the shallow water, said Guillermo Wade, manager of Argentina’s Chamber of Port and Maritime Activities.

Logistics costs are rising as more soy and corn must be trucked to the Atlantic ports of Bahia Blanca and Necochea, in southern Buenos Aires province, where ships make a final stop to be topped off with cargo before heading out to sea.

The Parana at Rosario was at 0.06 meters on Thursday versus a median 2.92 meters over the last 24 years, according to Argentina Coast Guard data. The measurement is a reference used by ship captains rather than an actual gauge of water depth.

GIMME SOME WATER

The drying trend in Brazil started in 2019. The next year was drier and 2021 has been the driest of the three years, Hankes said. The effect on the river is cumulative.

Over the last 12 months the Parana River basin has gotten only 50% to 75% of normal rainfall.

“We would need something like 130% of normal rainfall between now and February to replenish river levels. Anything less than 100% would be bad news for the river basin, and between now and February we expect maybe 80% of normal rainfall,” Hankes said.

“We do expect to see a wetter trend once we get into October-November, which you would typically see in the wet season anyway. But after that our best indications right now are that we could see a similar pattern to last year,” Hankes added.

The usually rainy Southern Hemisphere spring starts in September and ends in December. But the coming increase in water is expected to only temporarily help refresh the Parana.

“It could even get worse after the rainy season,” said German Heinzenknecht, a meteorologist at consultancy Applied Climatology.

“This shallow level of the waterway is historic, and it is hard to predict when it could be reversed,” Heinzenknecht added.

A top Argentine oilseeds executive with an international exporter with major crushing operation in Rosario agreed that the Parana crisis will probably continue next year. The executive asked not to be named, as per company policy.

“The situation will remain critical until October, improving in the late fourth quarter and first quarter. But from April onward, when Argentina’s soy and corn harvest starts, and the biggest number of cargo vessels are expected, the river at Rosario will be back to a scenario similar to 2021,” the executive said.

(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, additional reporting by Maximilian Heath; Editing by David Gregorio)

COVID still devastating in the Americas, health agency says

BRASILIA (Reuters) -COVID-19 continues to inflict a devastating toll on the Americas, with Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Paraguay among the countries with the world’s highest weekly death rates, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.

Cases have more than doubled in the United States over the past week, mainly among unvaccinated people, PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in a briefing.

The more transmissible Delta variant of coronavirus has been detected in 20 of the 35 countries in the Americas already, she said.

Cuba is seeing higher COVID infection and death rates than at any other point in the pandemic there, she said, adding that more than 7,000 minors and nearly 400 pregnant women have tested positive there in the last week.

Over the last week there were over 1.26 million COVID-19 cases and nearly 29,000 deaths reported in the Americas.

Infection hotspots have been reported in Argentine provinces bordering Bolivia and Chile, and in Colombia’s Amazon region.

“As COVID continues to circulate, too many places have relaxed the public health and social measures that have proven effective against this virus,” Etienne said.

So far, only 16.6% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as countries in the regions have yet to access the vaccines needed to keep their people safe, she said.

“The good news is that vaccines work against the variants, including Delta, in terms of preventing severe disease and death. The bad news is that we do not have yet enough vaccines to stop community transmission,” Etienne said.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Argentina urges people to ‘save water’ with Parana river at 77-year low

By Maximilian Heath

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina’s government has urged citizens to limit water use in a bid to alleviate pressure on the Parana River, a key grains thoroughfare that is at a 77-year low, a situation which is hampering shipments of cereals including soy and wheat.

A government advisory group called on people to “save water,” store rainwater for irrigation and avoid burning waste to prevent wildfires on the wetlands around the river delta.

“Water levels in the Parana are at the lowest level since 1944, which requires a commitment from everyone to attend and act preventively and responsibly against this situation,” the group said in a statement late on Monday.

The Parana, which has its source in southern Brazil, flows through Argentina to the coast near Buenos Aires. It is the transportation route for 80% of country’s farm exports and a source of drinking water, irrigation and energy.

However, due to a prolonged shortage of rainfall in Brazil, the Parana’s water levels have dropped dramatically, hitting the amount of cargo that can be carried by ships at the peak of the Argentine corn and soy export season.

On Saturday, the government announced a $10.4 million relief fund to mitigate the impact of low water levels.

On the banks of the Parana are important cities such as Rosario, Parana and Santa Fe. Rosario is the main agro-industrial hub and river port of Argentina, a leading global supplier of soy, corn and wheat to global markets.

(Reporting by Maximilian Heath; Editing by Adam Jourdan and David Evans)

Brazilian drugmaker completes first batch of Russian COVID-19 vaccine

By Leonardo Benassatto

GUARULHOS, Brazil (Reuters) -Brazilian pharmaceutical company União Quimica completed production of its first batch of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine with active ingredients and technology supplied by Russia, the company said on Thursday.

The vaccine will be exported to neighboring countries in South America, since Brazil has not yet approved the Russian shot for domestic use.

Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute, which developed the vaccine, said it had seen to quality control of the vaccine ingredients, which were put into vials and packaged for shipping – a process known as fill and finish – at the União Quimica plant in Guarulhos, just outside the city of São Paulo.

The factory’s first batch of 100,000 doses were packed into boxes labeled in Spanish, although the countries receiving them have not been decided yet by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), executives said.

Fernando Marques, chief executive of the family-owned firm, said Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina are interested in buying the vaccine. União Quimica will have a capacity for 8 million doses a month, when Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa approves its use in Brazil, he told Reuters.

Anvisa approval has been delayed after the agency took issue with some documents and missing trial data that the RDIF, which is marketing the shot, has been asked to provide.

Marques hopes approval will be given by June and his company will start producing the active ingredient at its biomedical lab in Brasilia instead of importing it from Russia.

RDIF said it has signed production contracts for Sputnik V with 20 manufacturing sites in India, Argentina, South Korea, China, Italy, Serbia, Egypt, Turkey, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

So far, the vaccine has already been produced in Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Egypt and Argentina, where the first test batch was produced on April 20 by Laboratorios Richmond, RDIF said.

(Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Argentina’s gravediggers plead for vaccines as death toll climbs

By Miguel Lo Bianco and Agustin Geist

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Ernesto Fabián Aguirre, a gravedigger in the Memorial cemetery in the suburbs of Argentine capital Buenos Aires, feels like he is going into battle every day as the country’s coronavirus death toll mounts amid a new wave of infections.

Argentina’s gravediggers are threatening to strike over demands that cemetery workers burying the dead are vaccinated against COVID-19, a test for the South American country’s government which has faced hold-ups to its vaccine roll-out.

“We face a daily war in this place,” Aguirre told Reuters. “The fear is real, that’s why we want the vaccine to arrive for everyone so that, at least, we can live a couple more years,” he said with a wry laugh.

Argentina is seeing a sharp second wave of the pandemic, with the average daily death toll hitting a record at over 450 lives lost a day. The country has recorded over 70,000 deaths since the pandemic hit. Daily new cases now average just below 25,000, prompting calls for tighter restrictions.

Meanwhile the country’s inoculation campaign has only fully inoculated 4.5% of the population and 18% has received at least one dose, according to a Reuters analysis. At an average of 132,000 doses given per day, it will take another 69 days to inoculate another 10% of the population.

Argentina’s union representing cemetery, crematorium and funeral workers has threatened a national strike if it does not reach a deal with the government on vaccines. The strike could start this week after a government-enforced conciliation period ends.

The burial protocol for COVID-19 victims involves disinfecting and handling the coffin, where workers have to wear protective gear including body suits, face masks, goggles and gloves.

“It is a very hard work every day and I would like if it could be possible for us to be vaccinated because each day we have to take good care of ourselves and the COVID-19 issue is raging,” said Juan Polig, the cemetery’s manager.

Polig explained that beyond the physical risk of infection, workers had to deal with the emotional pain of consoling relatives and having to restrict how many family members can visit the grave due to COVID protocol measures.

“It’s hugely sad and complicated,” he said.

(Reporting by Miguel Lo Bianco and Agustín Geist; Writing by Eliana Raszewski; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Lisa Shumaker)