The 122nd Exhibition of the Sociedad Rural Argentina

One of the highlights of the Argentina calendar is the Rural Exposition or “La Rural” which takes place every year at the Buenos Aires showgrounds of the Sociedad Rural Argentina. La Rural is one of the few events which takes up the entirety of the Society’s thirty-acre home nudged between Palermo Viejo and Palermo Nuevo and facing onto the Plaza Italia. Lasting from July 24 to August 4, with admission just 13 pesos (about $4.25 or £2.30), the show usually attracts a million visitors over its thirteen days.

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IT IS AN age-old question: what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The force in question is the farming community of Argentina, once among the agricultural powerhouses of the world, and the object is the country’s slippery presidential couple, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband (and predecessor in the top job) Néstor Kirchner. From all the way back in March, the Kirchners have been locked in a bitter dispute with the farming sector of the country since the presidential couple unilaterally imposed a massive tax on soy exports.

The Kirchners deride the farmers as “oligarchs” and claim that the exorbitant tax on one of Argentina’s most successful commercial sectors will be redistributed to the poor. Of course it would be irresponsible to simply take from the haves and give to the have-nots; the money raised would only go to the deserving poor, namely those who happen to support the Kirchner regime. Along the way, every cog in the machine will take his fair share, with a respectable amount left over to fatten the calves (metaphorically speaking) of the Kirchnerite street operators who quite openly buy votes during election time and pay union members to show up at pro-government rallies in between.

Argentine farmers protesting the Kirchner soy tax.

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