Alejandro owns 282 hectares which is 696.8 acres. He also rents and manages 800 hectares (1,976 acres) from other land owners. It is very common for land owners to hire a third party, or an outside producer, to help manage farm ground in Argentina since input costs, like machinery are too high priced for smaller operators to afford. Alejandro owns all the machinery necessary to do planting, spraying, harvesting, and transporting. He practices mainly no till on his ground and said he does not apply any more chemical than he has to, due to weeds becoming resistant to certain herbicides like Roundup. Some of his farming practices are similar to those in the US, but overall, producers in Argentina have a much more conservative approach.
For being a rather large operation, they used older machinery than what is generaly used on convential farming operations in North America. The farm ground we studied today was very fertile, the soil was comparable to the soil in Illinois. The land here is very flat and generally recieves 40-44 inches of rain a year. This makes drainage a problem for the farmers. Alejandro mentioned they were late getting crops planted this spring due to excessive rains. I asked him if drainage tile was commonly used to fix this problem. He said it was too costly and he would have to go very far with the water to get rid of it. He used his farm ground mainly to produce wheat and green pea´s in the winter months and corn and soybeans in the summer.
We ended the tour of his farming operation with a traditional asado meal prepared by Alejandros wife, Maria and hired man, Hector. By the end of the day it was over 100°F so the cold beverages and well prepared meal was greatly appreciated!
Submitted by Derek Van Heek. I discussed the crops at this operation and my fellow student Austin Effling with next discuss the livestock portion of our visit.
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| Alejandro discussing his farming and cattle operation with the students and interpreted by Jorge to the students. |
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| Brady H takingdetailed notes during Alejandro's discussions about crop operations in Argentina. |
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| Lexi Jennings studying the handout presented by Alejandro about his farming operation including detailed maps about crop rotation history for past 15 years. |
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| Equipment owned by the farm. |
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| Students viewing corn planted 25 days ago into a field which previously was pastureland but tilled up for crop. Corn was late in planting due to recent excessive rainfall. |
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| Ten year old New Holland combine that is worth more in dollar value now than when purchased due to demand for equipment for cropping in Argentina. |
