El Chaco cowboy

El Chaco cowboy, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

This is a photo of a gaucho we came across on the side of the road up to Formosa from Corrientes. It was a 200 km road, almost completely straight across very flat land, filled with wet chaco vegetation and cattle. Big estates and big fat cattle, producing some of the best beef in the world. Free range and organic.

But can we buy Argentinian beef easily here in Europe? In the 1930's and 1940's we could because we could not grow enough beef for ourselves in Europe. The came the Common Market and now the EU with its Common Agricultural Policy and protective tariffs. My butcher opposite tells me that if he wanted to buy top quality Argentinian steak he would have to pay 500% duty on top of the cost.

So, when we needed them (the Argentinins) we bought their cheap products and now we don't need them, we sem happy to let them suffer. Fortunately, Argentina has found strong markets in China and Asia, so they need us less.

Instead, we in Europe are forced to eat European or US (because they have threatened us with war if we do not buy their meat) meat which has often been produced by cattle living in sheds, injected with antibiotics and, in the case of US, hormones, all of which ahs been subsidised by the honest and unwitting tax payers.