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The president of the agro-industrial group “Los Grobo” Gustavo Grobocopatel spoke at the meeting organized by the Circle of Legislators of the Argentine Nation, and coordinated by the Secretariat of Production of the Institute of Strategic Studies and International Relations (IEERI), on the development opportunity of Argentina in Africa.
Grobocopatel highlighted, in the first place, the agricultural potential of Argentina: “Today we produce food for 10 times Argentina, but we can do it for 20 times, and in a sustainable way for everyone”.
The engineer said that 12 years ago they began to have consultations on rural development by the different governments of Africa, and that from there "we began to travel and observe that sustainable development is complex if we transfer knowledge."
"Africa is extremely important for Argentina, it has a lot of difficulties in producing food with protein deficits," Grobocopatel said, adding: "We have nothing to do but how to do it."
“When we did a job for the government of Ghana, in addition to the incorporation of technology (we were working with the people of Aapresid), it is necessary to facilitate access to knowledge by stimulating the migrations of expert brains, the formalization of agreements with communities local, territorial planning, the selection of the best soils (the quality is very uneven), facilitate access to the best germplasms, investment in the transformation of these grains into meats and, of course, financing. We also suggest the creation of an organization that coordinates these initiatives with the participation of the public and private sectors, ”he said.
Grobocopatel, who was traveling to Ethiopia today, said: “The work should be framed within the launch of a more intense relationship between our country and West Africa, where more than 300 million consumers demand what we know best in Argentina: food and the know how to do them. ”
In this regard, he explained that African savannas occupy about 400 million hectares in 25 countries, and that of that area, only 10% is used. "These countries spend about US $ 35,000 million per year on food imports and the forecast is that that figure will jump to US $ 110,000 million by 2025 if nothing is done about an agricultural expansion plan," he said.
The working breakfast was held at the headquarters of the Circle of Legislators, appointment at Bartolomé Miter 2087.
The meeting was presented by the president of the Circle of Legislators, Daniel "Chicho" Basile, and served as moderator and coordinator, the deputy of the Nation (MC), Gilberto Alegre, secretary of Production of the IEERI.
Basile highlighted "the importance" of the African continent for Argentina, for its "geopolitical location and the key to making investments is in the future agreements that our country must make with the 54 countries of Africa."
Meanwhile, Gilberto Alegre said that “today the challenge is to bring knowledge through the third sector. Today 60% of the land in Africa is arable but only 10% is worked. We have the knowledge to transform 100% of African land into arable land. ”
Finally, the Moroccan ambassador to Argentina, Fares Yassir, stressed that "Africa today offers an unbeatable development opportunity for our country, taking into account the crisis that China is experiencing that created a brake on the world economy."
The president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation, Sergio Massa, sent a letter of congratulation and adhesion to the initiative of the Circle of Legislators being available for future debates for the economic development of Argentina.
Present were the deputies of the Nation (MC), Cristina Guevara, Nestor Perl, Humberto Roggero, Jesús Rodriguez, Rafael Pascual, Fabio Quetlas and the senator of the Nation (MC), Liliana Gurdulich. Also the CLNA director, Marcelo Muscillo, the Argentine Association of Producers in Direct Sowing (AAPREDID), the African Chamber of Commerce in Argentina and the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, with his dean Leonardo Galaburri, among others. parlamentario.com
Automatic translation from spanish.
