Argentina is once again the world's leading exporter of soybean meal, but the price is at historic lows

Is soybeans – or, rather, their price – Peronist, as they say, half jokingly, half seriously, in economic and commercial circles? The question is tricky, because although the price of the oilseed has fallen sharply so far this year, its production in Argentina was in 2023, the last year of the Peronist government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK), victim of a historic drought. The truth is that the fall in the international price, to which is added locally an official exchange rate that producers judge to be outdated and a 33% reduction in export taxes, led to the domestic purchasing power of the product, adding external and internal factors, being the lowest in the last three decades, according to the latest Invecq report. In fact, a graph from the consulting firm headed by economist Esteban Domecq shows that the real price, including withholdings, is almost identical to that of the years of Fernando de la Rúa's government and the last months of CFK's ...