From the lush Pampas to dusty Patagonia, Argentine ranchers converged last week on Buenos Aires' fashionable Palermo Park to witness one of the year's most important rites: the judging of prize cattle at the Palermo Agricultural Show. Bulls so fat that they could hardly waddle were accompanied by cows to supply the ten gallons of milk, spiced with two dozen eggs, that the bulls drink each day. Peons attended the beasts' every need and rigidly enforced antinoise regulations during their four-hour siesta. Argentines take the whole thing very seriously, and with good reason: much of their nation's welfare is wrapped up in the cattle business.
The Argentine cattle population (43 million) outnumbers the humans 2 to 1, and one-sixth of Argentina's sprawling 2,000,000 square miles of land is turned over to cattle for grazing. More than 180,000 ranchers, as well as 788 meatpacking companies and 17% of Argentina's labor force of 6,000,000, depend on cattle for their livelihood. Beef is the nation's second largest foreign exchange earner, after grain, and last year accounted for nearly a quarter of Argentina's $1.2 billion total exports. This year, beef sales abroad will rise 30% to $392 million.
Dinners & Soup. British beefeaters have always been the biggest customers for Argentine canned, chilled and fro zen beef; in 1959 British purchases accounted for two-thirds of Argentina's exports. But since then, overproduction of beef by British farmers has forced a sharp cutback of nearly 20% in British buying. Fortunately for the Argentines, other European customers and newly opened markets behind the Iron Curtain and in Egypt, Israel and Portugal are taking up the slack.
Argentine cattlemen also have designs on Asian and African beef markets, but they are counting on greater U.S. sales for the big breakthrough. The U.S. imports $263 million worth of beef a year, all of it cooked or canned because of rigid laws prohibiting imports of fresh or fresh-frozen beef that might contain the virus of foot-and-mouth disease. Most imported beef goes into hot dogs and canned stews, or is brought in as canned corned beef. Last year Argentina got only $15.3 million of this business (one of its biggest customers: Campbell Soup Co. for its beef soups)—and it is working to get a lot more. The U.S. has now agreed to accept frozen cooked beef, provided it is from Argentine packers who meet U.S. Agriculture Department standards; only one packer has passed so far. This eventually could open up to Argentine beef the lucrative U.S. TV Dinner trade.
U.S. technicians are aiding in an Argentine campaign to banish foot-and-mouth disease through inoculations of cattle. The campaign has already freed 75% of the country's herds from the disease.
45¢ Steaks. By 1970, an Argentine government study estimates, the world market for Argentine beef will double to 820,000 tons a year. But by then, the report says, Argentina will have only 300,000 tons available for export. Reason: the Argentines themselves will be eating up too much of the output. They can buy a good steak for 45¢, snack between meals on succulent beef sausages, and already lead the world in beef consumption (178 Ibs. per person). The report glumly concludes that some way will have to be found to make beef less appealing to the locals.