"We are blessed, this is the humid Pampa in the heart of Patagonia," says agronomist Nicolás García, who made a turn to

Nicolás García lives in Neuquén but produces in Río Negro. He is the grandson of a pioneering family from the town of Plottier, owners of a transportation company that, with the intention of diversifying their profits, bought a field in Valle Azul in 2006. Valle Azul grew on the southern bank of Río Negro, and constitutes the most important productive strip of this province on national route 22. It is located 140 kilometers east of the Neuquén town where Nicolás lives. The story begins with his grandparents, Manuel and Dolores, who lived in Mendoza and transported vegetables to and from Neuquén. “That was in the fifties, but then, due to life circumstances, they decided to settle in Plottier in the sixties,” Nicolás recounts. From fruit and vegetables, they moved on to the oil and gas industry, with their transportation company now well established in the Neuquén oil basin of the Vaca Muerta area and named after Dolores, his “Spanish grandmother.” “To diversify, the field part ...