2023-09-21 02:13:22
Diego Silva feels the impact of inflation in his butcher shop in Buenos Aires: customers adjust their pockets to buy meat, a central product in the Argentine diet, after a rise in prices that hits consumption.
Argentina registered this Wednesday the highest monthly inflation in three decades, 12.4%, with 124.4% for 12 months. Everything rose, but mainly the food category (15.6%).
Common ground beef, which is the most popular, rose, for example, 39.4% in August, according to the report from the state statistics agency (Indec). Other finer cuts also follow that line.
“People who don’t have money come to buy little by little, day by day,” Silva told AFP outside the establishment located in Mataderos, the historic “meat neighborhood.”
“He looks at prices a lot, he turns to chicken, pork.”
This is the country of barbecue, where everything is celebrated with friends and family grilling meat. In fact, Argentina is the main consumer of beef in the world, followed by Uruguay, the United States, Australia and Brazil.
In 2022, consumption rose to 52 kg per capita, and this year “it will fall again to 46, 47”, similar to 2019 and 2020, explains Miguel Schiariti, president of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Meat and Derivatives (CICCRA). ).
“Meat is what yields the most, and the Argentine is a carnivore,” Silva notes.
– “People didn’t buy” –
The price of meat had been increasing this year at a lower rate than general inflation.
Several factors influenced it. The drought, for example, forced many producers to oversupply because corralled cattle fatten faster.
But there came a devaluation of about 20%, announced on August 14 after the primaries that preceded the general elections on October 22, and inputs – all in dollars – increased.
The price shot up 70% in two weeks and consumption plummeted.
“People couldn’t afford it anymore: it’s not that they put in 1,000 pesos more, it’s that (they said) ‘I can’t carry it.'”
The fall forced a correction in the market, but “it is a little more expensive,” Silva insists.
Soledad Nocito, for example, changed her habits. “I started buying less red meat and more chicken, I started replacing it,” says this 36-year-old university professor, who works two jobs to make ends meet.
“I buy more vegetables (which also went up) because of the increase in the price of meat.”
René Godoy walks through Mataderos with the purchase of the week. He spent 20,000 pesos on meat, about $55.
“It’s scary, it’s a little scary,” says this employee in a restaurant. “I buy for the week, every week to be able to survive, because the money is not enough.”
“Today I bought this, tomorrow or maybe the other Monday it might be more expensive.”
CICCRA’s Schiariti estimates that the price will continue to increase this and next year.
With the end of the La Niña phenomenon and the return of the rain, producers hope to be able to graze their animals more and control the market.
On the other hand, due to the climate, many animals died and there were fewer pregnant cows and consequently less supply: “we are going to have between 1.3 and 1.5 million fewer calves,” said Schiariti.
Argentina is one of the main meat producers in the world, and in the Cañuelas Agricultural Market, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, a good part of the livestock is traded.
“Nice cow, what should we put on it to carry it? 15, 20, 30, 35, 40? 35!”: Agustín Lalor hardly takes a breath at the auction, he goes at a thousand, pen after pen selling cattle, which ends in domestic consumption or export.
From an elevated walkway that walks above cows, calves and bulls, buyers raise their hands to make their offers.
“Inflation impacts everyone,” says Lalor. “They are the costs… If you do not increase the product you are selling, indirectly or directly, the profitability of your business is decreasing.”
Last month – partly in jest, partly in advertising – a butcher in Buenos Aires, fed up with inflation and the fluctuation of the peso, published his prices in dollars: “Beef ribs = 5 dollars, Minced meat = 3 dollars” .
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