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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.