Examining agriculture in Argentina
One of the big differences between growers in South America and here is tillage.
While many farmers in Central Illinois still do tillage, most in the southern part of the world plant into no-till conditions and have for a number of years. Lisandro Vada from Argentina admits they face different challenges in his country.
“Our planters have a toolbar in front of the row unit with a coulter and that makes really small tillage so the row unit can make ground contact,” the Precision Planting regional manager for central Argentina explained.
The surface and sizes of farms in central Argentina are similar to here but as you go to the north or south, land is less productive and fields become wider.
Vada is in one of the most productive areas of Argentina as his family has two fields they farm, growing crops in a traditional wheat-soybean-corn rotation.
“I love what I do,” Vada admits.
Vada was visiting with Midwestern farmers during last month’s Greater Peoria Farm Show at the Peoria Civic Center. He works with a network of Precision Planting dealers in Argentina not only on the commercial side of things but also on research and development and plots.
“We are trying to help farmers grow better crops,” said Vada. “Now the team is really growing.”
As the planting business continues to grow in South America, Vada and others are trying to challenge the status quo by convincing farmers they don’t always need a brand-new planter but need to improve what they have for increased success.
Vada considered his time at the Greater Peoria Farm Show “amazing” and observed a completely different environment than he is used to. For instance, there are numerous brands featured here that they don’t have.
As of early December when Vada was in Peoria, he said Argentina was having a really great growing season after coming out of a really dry winter period. Since they started planting corn in September, the first week of the season was hard but after that, the rains came.
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