CANFA Comment

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.