Angry truckers tried to break up a farmers' roadblock in central Argentina on Thursday as an escalating farm revolt over taxes that has emptied meat counters and paralyzed exports entered its third week.
The farm protests against higher taxes on soy and other key exports have become a major crisis for President Cristina Fernandez, who planned to speak at a rally of supporters on Thursday to counter earlier pro-farmer rallies.
Groups of small and large farmers maintained road blocks on key rural highways, preventing farm goods from getting to market, and held marches and protests in cities throughout the country.
The strike has halted grain exports from Argentina and is affecting soy buyers in Europe and China.
The government and farmers have refused to negotiate, despite calls from church leaders and local governments, the first wants the blockade to be lifted before the meeting, and the others doesn´t want to step down if the economical measures are not reviewed.
Truck drivers fed up with days stuck at a farmers' barricade tipped over a 4x4 pickup in the central province of Cordoba on Thursday morning, but they were chased off before they could dismantle the roadblock.
In cities, middle class protesters banged pots and pans in the streets for the second night running on Wednesday to support farmers.
Those sounds were eerily reminiscent of pan-banging protests that ousted a president in 2001, but the government responded sending thugs to break the protest, acting like nazi SA stormtroopers of Ernest Rohm in Germany, 75 years ago. A bitter past for a country that was heaven for hundreds of war criminals after World War II, accepted for the founder and leader of the political party now on goverment (Juan Peron).
The farmers are protesting a new sliding-scale tax, which would replace a fixed tax and make levies on soy exports significantly higher at current prices. They say the higher tax would harm smaller farmers.
But they are also expressing frustration with Fernandez' authoritarian style.
Ironically, Argentina has been one of the main beneficiaries of a global surge in commodities prices and the economy has been booming for five years, rebounding from a deep crisis in 2001-2002.
The standoff illustrates the country's deep disagreement over how to spread around the windfall profit -- Argentina's soy receipts totalled $13.47 billion (6.72 billion pounds) last year.
Fernandez says farmers are getting wealthy off cheap labour and subsidized fuel, and argues the higher export taxes on soy and other products will help the 25 percent of Argentines who are poor.
Daniel Scioli, governor of Buenos Aires province, spoke with farm leaders on Wednesday night and although the government denied he will lead negotiations, some media said he is the choice to bridge the divide between the two sides.
Scioli is an ally of the Kirchners, but he is trying to keep his own agenda becacause wants to run for next president election on 2011. His province contains much of the country's rich farmland and is also home to 40 percent of Argentines and almost half the country's economy.
President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled in a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-exporting nations.
At least 9,000 cattle normally enter this capital's sprawling stockyard each day for slaughter, yet not a single animal arrived this week due to the farm and ranch strike.
South America's second-largest economy — a leading exporter of soybeans, beef and wheat — is in full farmbelt rebellion over a new sliding-scale increase in export taxes. Soybean taxes are being hiked from 35 percent to 45 percent, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.
"Bad policies by the government are leaving people without food, without beef," complained Mario Llambias, one of the farm protest organizers who announced Tuesday a 13-day old strike would now continue "indefinitely."
But Fernandez appeared undeterred as she delivered a televised address later in the evening. Vowing not to "give in to extortion," the new president declared that her government will not grant any concessions to the striking farm and ranch workers.
Fernandez said farm producers have profited from a boom in commodity prices and it is only fair to tax them more to redistribute wealth to poorer parts of society. "This seems like ... comedy," she said.
Late Tuesday, thousands of angry middle-class residents of Buenos Aires and other cities responded to her speech by banging pots in a raucous, spontaneous outpouring of support for the farmworkers.
"Argentina! Argentina!" some 5,000 people, including mothers with strollers and others banging on pots joined a surging and unexpectedly strong challenge to the government.
Other protesters in farm-dependent cities and hamlets across Argentina's farmbelt waged similar pot-banging protests.
"This is a pretty ugly wakeup alarm for the government after just a few months in power," said one angry protester Hector Bernardino, among the 5,000 who thronged the main Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires.
He said middle class Argentines, like the farmers, are weary of taxes and double-digit inflation he said the government has sought to conceal behind praise for years of robust recovery.
After a searing 2002 economic meltdown, the government replenished its coffers through taxes on surging grain exports and soaring commodity prices. The cash influx powered an economic growth rates topping 8 percent annually.
Argentina's economy is back on track — and agriculture remains one of its most profitable sectors. It's only fair that farmers and ranchers be taxed on more of that wealth, according to Economy Minister Martin Lousteau, who announced the controversial tax overhaul on March 11.
Growing demand for foodstuffs in China and other teeming nations, high oil prices and other shifts in the global economy have all helped pushed grain prices to new highs in recent months.
But the agriculture industry is howling at having to pay more.
The farmers are demanding to sit down and negotiate a rollback on the new taxes, which Buzzi calls "extortion" against farmers. The government says it won't start talks until the protests stop.
And so the daily demonstrations have continued, with belching tractors and giant harvesters blocking rural highways nationwide, occasionally sowing monstrous traffic jams.
During the long Easter holiday weekend on routes from the capital to South Atlantic beaches, many Argentines stuck in the traffic applauded the demonstrators, saying they too are fed up with government taxes.
The protests have spread far beyond the capital, with sugarcane workers beating cane stalks along highways in north-central Tucuman province and soybean farmers dumping mounds of beans near the border with Uruguay.
Police have managed to keep the most important routes open without widescale arrests or violence. But the confrontations have been tense.
And now Argentina's consumers are beginning to feel the pinch. In the country's main stockyard Tuesday, the Liniers market, a lone cowhand galloped on his horse past empty cattle pens where thousands of cattle usually jostle.
More than two years of tensions between Argentina's government and the country's powerful farm sector have exploded as farmers have set up roadblocks and refused to release their production to protest an export tax increase on some products.On Tuesday, farmers had mounted some 150 roadblocks throughout this 40 million-person country, snarling traffic on some of the country's principal highways. They also have refused to release much of their production, leading to shortages at markets.
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner added fuel to the fire Tuesday night by strongly denouncing the farmers and accusing them of ingratitude for protesting while earning record profits. Farmers and their supporters reacted immediately, filling streets around the country condemning the speech.
''I will not yield to any extortion,'' Fernández de Kirchner said in the televised speech from the presidential palace. ``I can understand the interests of the sector, but I want them to understand that I have to govern for the interests of all Argentines.''
According to TV reports, cars honked and thousands of protesters poured into the streets in several areas of Buenos Aires and in front of the presidential palace, banging pots and pans, waving flags and holding signs denouncing the speech.
''There's a threshold that's been crossed and expectations that haven't been met,'' said Argentine political analyst Felipe Noguera. ``The farmers feel like they haven't been listened to, and it's fed into this outburst of anger.''
Tensions have simmered since former President Néstor Kirchner began imposing export bans two years ago on some cuts of beef to control rising prices. Price controls and export bans on wheat and other products followed, further enraging farmers.
Kirchner's wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, became president in December promising to build a social pact among farmers, workers and other sectors to contain prices. Economists estimate inflation hit almost 20 percent last year in Argentina, more than double the widely questioned official numbers.
Farmers, however, said Fernández de Kirchner had unilaterally raised taxes instead of negotiating and that enough was enough. Nearly all of Argentina's soybean production is exported.
''The tariffs were the drop that overturned the entire glass,'' said Nicolás Bossio, a spokesman for the agrarian federation. ``The government is doing this purposefully to concentrate everything in their hands and take away resources from the sector. They're not interested in dialogue.''
Farmers said Tuesday that they would continue with the blockades and production strike until the government canceled the tax hike but would send milk and other more perishable goods into the market.
Police have cleared a few of the road blockades, while truck drivers allied with the government have confronted some farmers on highways.
Government officials said they imposed the new tax to protect the domestic market from international price fluctuations as well as to contain the growth of soybean cultivation, which they said was crowding out other crops.
The government has refused to negotiate with farmers until they stop the strikes. The protests effects have been felt in Buenos Aires, where 40 percent of butcher shops were closed Tuesday for lack of business and 90 percent of supermarkets also reported meat shortages, according to the nonprofit Consumer Education Center.
''In 30 years, I have never experienced an impact this severe, '' said Daniel Ramondy, owner of a Buenos Aires butcher shop.
Farmers in Argentina have pledged to continue a nationwide protest after the government refused to back down on tax rises on agricultural exports.
Two weeks of blockades by farmers have left many shops in the main cities short of meat and dairy products.
Amid the shortages, thousands of Argentines, banging pots and pans, took to the streets to back the farmers.
President Cristina Fernandez, in office since December, says the increased taxes on farm exports are justified.
Protesters have been stopping lorries carrying farm produce and either turning them back or dumping their goods on the road.
Speaking on national television, President Fernandez said the agricultural sector was one of the country's most profitable with global demand growing for Argentine beef, corn, wheat and soybeans.
"I'm not going to submit to extortion. I understand the industry's interests but I want them to know that I'm the president for all Argentines," she said, making it clear there would be no talks while the farmers' strike continued.
Soon after her address, demonstrators in Buenos Aires and other cities gathered on the streets to stage pot-banging protests.
"This is a pretty ugly wake-up call for the government after just a few months in power," protesters Hector Bernardino told Reuters.
He said middle-class Argentines, like the farmers, were tired of taxes and double-digit inflation.
Flashpoints
Argentina is one of the world's top exporters of soya, wheat and beef and any prolonged conflict will have a major effect on vital export earnings, says the BBC's Daniel Schweimler in Buenos Aires.
The farmers' strike is the biggest crisis faced by Ms Fernandez since she took office more than three months ago, succeeding her husband Nestor Kirchner, our correspondent adds.
The government has been using taxes on grain and commodity exports to boost state revenues.
Taxes on a range of goods including soybeans, sunflower oil and beef are being raised by up to 45%, increases that farmers have described as crippling.
"We will continue the strike for as long as necessary," said Eduardo Buzzi, president of the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA).
Trade at Argentina's largest grain and cattle markets has ground to a halt while many shops are reporting shortages of supplies.
There have been disputes between farmers and truck drivers, and armed police have been deployed at potential flashpoints.
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