CANFA Comment

The photos below are of the flood at Michael Pfitzner’s, and his neighbours, between Griffith and Rankins Springs, (along with a bogged boomspray from Richard Langley's Greenethorpe property), indicating some of the challenges facing our farmers as a result of some of the unusual rain events of recent months (bogged boomsprays being one of them). In what is considered a marginal cropping area, well away from any river system, this amount of water entering a property has the potential to cause untold damage, both short and long term.

1. The erosive potential of clean, quick moving water is immense. The soft friable soil created by no-till farming systems, if exposed, could be easily eroded by this amount of water. 
2. What has this upstream water brought onto the farm? Herbicide residues, (herbicide resistant) weed seeds, crop and pasture residue and eroded soil could all be carried by this water and deposited onto cropping country creating both short-term and long-term impacts.
3. Soil and residue deposited onto paddocks in “fans” can also create topographical changes which can impact on subsequent cultural operations, especially in a controlled traffic farming system in defined traffic rows.
4. Damage to both property boundary and internal fences can also be substantial. If stock is present, the necessity to fix these fences for stock control is paramount. 
5. The damage done by stock randomly trafficking these paddocks on soils close to their plastic limit is also immense.

To see an album of photos from the trip to Argentina click on this Facebook link.

We left Cruz Alta at 7.00 am and drove for 3.5 hours to Junín City to attend ExpoAgro. This is one of 2 large expo’s held in Argentina each year. We were met by Carlos Braga and his colleagues from Cideter. We each went our own way during the day. It was interesting to see how the Argentineans ran the day, the styles of the exhibits, the extra attractions and the active displays. We all realised that we could easily have stayed another day to make full use of the opportunity presented to us on many fronts.
Neville spent much of his time with staff from INTA, doing a TV interview, holding a debrief meeting with INTA staff and then visiting precision agriculture stands to discuss the adoption and use of the technology in Argentina and Australia. One company was intending to attend Agquip in 2012.
John Lawrie spent a considerable time in the soil pit discussing the obvious soil compaction issues and ways of alleviating them. It was interesting to see a number of displays with non-inversion tillage machinery despite the message prior to our attendance of the presence or impact of little or no compaction.
Grant and Greg spent a considerable time at the Monsanto display discussing their GM technology and issues arising from its introduction. They were openly willing to discuss glyphosate resistance (particularly Johnson grass) and how farmers are managing difficult production years like 2011-12.
We drove back nearly 300km to Buenos Aires, arriving safely (but only just) around 9.30pm after another precarious trip on Argentinean roads.

Day 9 Thursday March 8, 2012 – Cruz Alta
We visited two local Cruz Alta factories, Favot and Pierobon in the morning. Roberto Peiretti and his son-in law hosted us at both locations and obviously had a close working relationship with them.
Favot is a family owned business with both father and son involved in the company. They are essentially a sprayer manufacturer with self-propelled, trailed and 3PL models. They have been involved in engineering for a considerable time and were well established in the town. Whilst we had a look at their manufacturing facilities and even went for a ride in a contractors machine, the most exciting time was spent looking at the manufacture, studying the drawings and talking about a new prototype self propelled sprayer. This new machine had a quite revolutionary design which would reduce the weight of the chassis to nearly half its predecessor.
We then visited the Pierobon seeder manufacturer plants. Again this is a family owned business which was established in 1958 by a local blacksmith, Jose Pierobon. They make double and single disc planting units. These were of high quality manufacture, and featured a number of units unique to the brand – easy end-tow, dual phasing rams on each travel wheel for self levelling whilst planting, simple unit lock-up mechanisms, crimped double disc unit allowing less relief angle of the discs and internal hub for the bearing system, double disc design which enabled a longer contact length between discs and better slot shape maintenance, front bar side shift capacity, a rotatable coulter depth adjustment to account for disc wear being amongst these features.
Lunch was held in Cruz Alta at a local restaurant. The food and hospitality was again exemplary. As Cruz Alta was a town which still had a “siesta” time we returned to our motel and were picked up at 4pm to go to Roberto Peiretti’s farm, 15km from town. He remarked along the way that whilst he had carted hundreds of thousands of tons of grain over the years from his 5000ha family owned farm, he still had to endure unsealed and poorly maintained roads. He also paused at a photo point which he had been monitoring over the years for the impact of no-till farming systems – a point in a field which had been severely eroded under conventional tillage systems, had been restored and was gainfully producing crops again.
Upon arrival at their farm which had recently reduced its workforce from 22 staff back to 11, we were shown through their machinery shed which again was tightly packed with tractors (15 mainly locally produced cheaper 2 wheel drive tractors for chaser bins), 2 new class 8 Case IH headers, 2 new Pierobon seeders (he believed in investing in technology which made him money rather than technology that just looks good), numerous groupers and (surprisingly) a single Metalfor self propelled sprayer.
We then ventured down the paddock where we inspected some early sown and later sown (uncommon) maize. He explained that it was all about risk management – spreading the planting time was enabling him to potentially miss any stressful time at silking-tasseling synchronisation. We also were able to dig the soil and found our first Argentinean worms, much to John’s delight.
We again endured another traditional Argentinean “asado” BBQ dinner late into the night discussing amongst many other things, Roberto’s forthcoming trip to Australia to present at the annual VNTFA and CANFA Conservation Agriculture Conferences in July 2012 at Ballarat and Griffith respectively and then potentially at the Forbes Grains Conference in August.

We would have loved to have spent more time in Rosario as it looked to be a wonderful place.  The Parana River, their largest river, also flows through it and unfortunately due to foggy conditions we were unable to get a good look at it. We were escorted around the planter manufacturing facility of Bertini in Rosario by the owner of the business and his engineer and interpreter Louis. Mr Bertini a very proud Italian –Argentinean, who still runs the family business at the age of 76. Started his business 35 years ago with a small planter similar to standard small combine with double disc undercarriage suitable for zero till planting. This model is still in production. Mr Bertini is a very motivated individual who obviously has very strong relationship with his employees. Unlike some of the other manufacturers that we have met, Bertini is a full in-house production even building their own hydraulic rams to ensure the quality that Bertini is renowned for. Bertini also has a patented bearing assembly, designed and manufactured in-house that could revolutionise the bearing assemblies used on double disc openers.
After 4 hours having a guided tour of his facilities Mr Bertini hosted us for a large lunch and discussed the future of farming in Australia using the Argentinean model. We were then joined by Raul Abati for a brief discussion before thanking the Mr Bertini for his hospitality and leaving with Raul Abati for the trip to his factory in Pergamino City to discuss his line of planting equipment and tractors.
Mr Abati, another very proud Argentinean, although from Spanish background, presented us with another manufacturing model where his focus was solely on exporting his product. Mr Abati went on to show us the models that he has released in Australia and showed and explained the alterations he had made to suite our particular soil constraints and the need for strength in the machines to improve productivity while maintaining durability.
After a long trip with Mr Abati, 200 kms to Cruz Alta, the well known and respected zero till advocate Mr Roberto Peiretti and his family hosted us with a traditional Argentinean “asado” BBQ dinner late into the night to discuss the following days activities and the problems of the agricultural world; the squeeze on profitability, the sustainability of production and government intervention. The world of Agriculture will be a better place for this discussion.

Day 7 – Tuesday March 6, 2012: Marcos Juarez – Las Rosas - Las Parejas - Rosario
The day started with a very early meeting with the owner of Agrotax Mr Abelardo Cuffia, a leading precision agriculture equipment manufacturer looking for us to visit his establishment. Argentina is the second biggest adopter of precision agriculture technology in the world. Unfortunately we had a full day booked and were unable to meet with him. However Neville was able to catch up with them at Expoagro.
We then travelled to Las Rosas to visit the headquarters of PLA with Daniel and Josephina, manufacturers of spraying and seeding machinery. They were in the process of moving into brand new premises and from first impressions it would eventually be a very impressive factory. The style of their equipment was quite different, far more modern and had incorporated a number of features into their design and manufacture which were more suited to today’s operating and manufacturing environment.
Then to Caiman sprayers with Alejandro, where we looked through the factory at large self propelled sprayers more than capable of handling Australian conditions. Frederico, the owner seemed more than happy to change specifications to customers’ needs. A number of features caught our eye, carbon fibre booms, space frame bolted booms, sprayer chassis clearance and track width adjustments, a very stylish boom folding mechanism being amongst the impressive range of features.
We then gave a presentation at Cideter headquarters in Las Parejas, which is the major representative body for the cluster of machinery manufacturer’s in Argentina. This was followed by lunch before we walked down to Apache to view their machinery business with their Marketing Manager. Apache make and export a range of equipment, including drills, planters and sprayers.
The Ombu factory visits with Diego Falconi, their international trade manager, were very different. They had a number of factories spread around the city, which were about to be amalgamated into one premises with work beginning shortly. They make a range of equipment from grain extraction and bagging delivery equipment for silo bags, grain chaser bins, header (corn, sunflower) fronts, mixers sprayers and other forage or pasture equipment.
We were then driven to the Rostower Motel in Rosario by a taxi and one of Andres’ friends. We arrived very late. Interestingly the waiter at the hotel restaurant was from Sydney, so we were looked after very well again.

Very nice motel “Portal de Este” catering for professional travellers.
We spent all morning at the INTA Marcos Juarez Research Centre with soil and breeding staff. Greg was very interested in the bio-technology and gene manipulation research. It was interesting to hear from the soil researchers on the origin of their soils and the general condition under current farming practices. We visited the field to look at some more comparative maize and soybean tillage sites, a display of past equipment (the transition from conventional to no-till technology) and the glasshouses to look at some breeding work.
We lunched at a Marcos Juarez restaurant, with the afternoon and early evening spent at Metalfor at Marcos Juarez and Crucianelli in Armstrong.
Metalfor makes self propelled sprayers, trailed sprayers, harvesters and tractors (previously the ARAUS brand). We were hosted by Anibal Martinez, their overseas marketing manager, who presented us with a “mate” set. “Mate” is a communal “tea” which is commonly shared at meetings. It is made from crushed leaves from the jerba shrub, Ilex paraguariensis, a native to South America, which are placed in a gourd shaped container to which hot water is added. The tea is sucked through a metal straw and is passed in a clockwise direction. The mate has a sour taste but as we found out, it is very good at keeping you awake!
Crucianelli make double disc planters. They export to many parts of the world and are small enough to cater for the individual needs of farmers.
Late afternoon was spent at Crucianelli, with Jorge, Dante and Fanny. They were very helpful showing us around the impressive factory and answering hours of questions. The owner of factory came down to interview us before we left and was very interested in our views on his machinery and how it could fit into the Australian environment.
The day ended with a very harrowing trip back to our motel at Marcos Juarez with Jorge through some extremely heavy rain (85 mm’s for the night).

Another long hot day in the field getting back to the motel after dinner at midnight. We spent today looking at 2 farms with 2 INTA extension agronomists Alejandro and Frederico as well as Carlos Braga from Cideter.