Matías Macera on Argentina’s pulses market/
“Agriculture is the new government’s most important ally!”

Great to see you Matías! Tell us how the last year has been for Desdelsur.

On balance it was a positive year – international prices for pulses remained high and helped compensate for lower crop yields.

With regards to beans, it's been a year of very little water and we've been suffering the effects of a few years of El Niño. In the end, the summer crop was average towards below-average, but prices mostly stayed strong and that helped compensate for the lack of product. Alubias were worst affected – historically Argentina exports between 150,000-200,000 MT, but this year we have a maximum of 100,000 MT for export – a drop of almost 50%. 

In terms of the winter crop, the chickpeas we grow in the very north of Salta had decent yields, but the size of the product was smaller than expected. This was probably down to a lack of water during the final stage of plant development and a heat wave in September –  almost one-third of the production of NOA (Northwestern Area) was also seriously affected by rains that arrived too early in a particular week in October.