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By Adalberto Rossi, Argentina
The poultry meat business in Argentina closes a decade of astonishing growth. Figures are more than evident: only in 2010, it reported a daily slaughter of 2,500,000 birds, a domestic annual consumption of 37 kg per capita, 310,000 tonnes of exports and 67 open international markets, the granting of credit for the sector and the start-up of the second 2010-2017 strategic project (which implies an investment of at least USD 600 millions). Furthermore, it has managed to join an even greater initiative: the national project.Integral development plan
There are several reasons to explain the success of the sector. Perhaps, the most decisive reason has been that the sector dared to reinvent itself and to fight against the cash loss it faced at the beginning of the decade. For that matter, it was necessary to design an integral development plan to be maintained through time.
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| Professional Argentine producers are well aware of the necessity of strict biosecurity measures on their farms. |
Convertibility was impractical
In those years, it was very difficult to get to foreign markets. “We were a competitive sector. From the productive parameters standpoint, we could compete with any other country, but when we got out to the world all we wanted to sell was expensive but our price product ratio was not good. That was the most evident symptom that convertibility was impractical,” states Domenech.
In all the sectors of Argentina’s economy, convertibility led to a concentration process in favour of those most powerful. In the agricultural and livestock sector, many small and medium size breeders were left behind. The poultry segment was not alien to that process. However, notwithstanding the economic model implemented since the 90s, “the poultry sector presented, at the very core of its activity, two very severe drawbacks that we suffered even before the convertibility: the first and most important were the endemic crises, always closely related to the second difficulty: the incapacity of the sector to manage its stock, or what we may call compulsive production,” states Domenech.
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Source: World Poultry, Vol. 27, No. 6, 2011
