The Rice Growers Association maintained that the measure is the “only solution” to offset the difference in the price of diesel with the rest of Latin America.
The president of the Rice Growers Association (HERE), alfredo lakehe asked the president Luis Lacalle Pou and the other authorities of the Executive Power who were present last Monday in Rivera on the occasion of the inauguration of the 2023 rice harvest, which “the free importation of fuels is the only solution” to compete with diesel prices in the countries of the region.
Along these lines, the chief recalled that rice farmers are currently facing “a 42% increase in the trust fund that subsidizes passenger transport,” an increase of almost “5 pesos per liter”. For Lake, “it needs to be removed”since it is a matter that weighs exclusively on the producers and freight forwarders.
The agricultural leader also insisted that it is necessary to work on the construction of “multi-farm dams for collective use”, as established by the Laguna Merín Mixed Technical Commission, where “the construction of 19 dams was recommended, nine of them in Uruguay”, but only one was carried out. For the head of the ACA, “it is time to dust off those projects that are very well done.”
Likewise, he complained about the logistical costs, which currently “condition the growth and development of many activities”, and from the ACA they have been a few years “requesting the qualifications of bitrens or tritrains” as does the forestry sector. In this sense, he proposed “reusing rail transport” as in previous times.
However, not all of them were pale for the rice leader, who highlighted “an excellent interaction with joint venture which maintained the 15% discount for use in irrigation”, in terms of electricity. Something that “generated solutions” by eliminating “the surcharge at rush hour, a measure with a great impact on cost and efficiency in the use of the irrigation system.”
The ACA fired at the Foreign Ministry for its absence at the inauguration of the harvest
The head of the ACA regretted that the Foreign Ministry authorities “no one wanted to participate in this inauguration”, as “none of the four previous ones did either”. However, he highlighted the work of the former vice president of the Republic and current ambassador to Peru, Luis Hierro Lopezand the designation of the former mayor of tacuarembó, Eber da Rosaas ambassador to Venezuelatwo prominent destinations for national rice.
In conclusion, he stressed Central America as a strategically relevant area for the country’s rice growers, as it is “a region with high per capita consumption of rice, the largest in the West, with a high demographic density and with continuous difficulties in supplying its populations with local production”.
Source: Ambito
