Carnivore heaven, past and present

Three words can define Argentina: Tango, Malbec and, most of all, Gaucho. Argentina’s cattle culture, personified in the gaucho tradition, is recognized around the world. The spirit of these revered Argentine cowboys permeates the society that’s home to the most voracious beef eaters on Earth. The average Argentinian consumes upwards of 100 pounds of beef annually. And it’s been that way since the beginning.

Spanish conquistadores brought the first cattle to Argentina only 40 years after Christopher Columbus first sailed to the New World. Cattle were introduced to provide meat for the villages springing up around the mouth of the Rio Plata – settlements that eventually merged into the city of Buenos Aires.

The cattle of Iberian Creole breeding were very prolific and rapidly formed feral herds that spread into the rich and virtually uninhabited grasslands of what is now known as the Pampas. Soon there were more cows than people to eat them.

With no significant predators and plenty of room to roam, the cattle population swelled to tens of thousands within a few years. By the early 1700s, it was estimated that 30-40 million cows were scattered across the Pampas.

Cattle literally became free for the taking. Gauchos gathered the wild animals, slaughtered them and sold the best cuts in makeshift wet markets in and around Buenos Aires.

Related:Global BEEF Series: Leveling the playing field on quality beef

Later, Shorthorn, Hereford and Angus seedstock from Great Britain were crossed with the Creole cattle, helping improve disposition and meat quality traits. Beef production continued to outpace consumption. The typical Argentinian simply could not eat enough beef. Cows died of old age, and countless tons of meat rotted on the prairies or were dumped into the Rio Plata.

A modern-day gaucho sorts through a herd of Angus heifers on his estanica in the Santa Fe province of Argentina’s Pampas region. Photo: Clint Peck.

Hides, tallow and tasajo

Of course, the idea of exporting fresh Argentine beef was out of the question. Dried beef, known as tasajo, was shipped back to Spain, albeit in very limited quantities. British and American whaling companies established a beef salting industry meant to feed the sailors who plied South Atlantic waters.

Beef remained more of a nuisance than a commodity, although hides for leather and tallow for lighting oil were sorely needed in the Old World. Slaughterhouses, tanneries and rendering plants joined the salting plants in old Puerto La Boca. Later, the Puerto Madero district near Buenos Airies was built to support the expanding trade of cattle products.

With the advent of crude refrigeration systems in the late 1890s, fresh beef exports began to flow out of the country. Pressure-cooked beef was shipped across the Atlantic as well as to other regions of South America. In the years just before and after the turn of the 20th century, beef exports reached upwards of 10,000 tons annually.

Related:Global beef roundup: Focus on Brazil - Part 1

Barbeque called asadao is often the center of social and political events in Argentina, where nearly everyone identifies with the country’s rich and storied beef culture. Photo: Clint Peck.

Waves of immigration

It didn’t take long for Argentina to emerge as another new frontier for Europeans. Most settled in and around Buenos Aires and along the Rio Plata. Many of the wealthier new residents established sprawling estancias – ranches – in the interior. Between 1880 and 1920, nearly 6 million European immigrants arrived in Argentina.

As Argentina’s population grew, the balance between beef supplies and consumption leveled off. The Argentine cattle industry matured at pace with the country’s growing industrial base, albeit frequently interrupted by global wars and periodic domestic unrest.

Interior settlements morphed into manufacturing and commercial centers as immigration from war-torn Europe surged again, especially from Italy and Germany. Disillusioned Nazis and surviving Jews formed alliances and created migration pipelines to the southern New World.

With immigration came capital for investments and labor for agricultural and industrial growth. As always, Argentina offered its citizens a cheap and stable food supply – buoyed by a plethora of beef. It was manna from heaven for Europeans who had experienced decades of food insecurity bordering on famine.

Related:Global beef roundup: Focus on Brazil, Part 2

A double-edged sword

The development of production and processing technology, coupled with investments into transportation infrastructure, allowed agriculture to flourish. Argentina was on its way to becoming one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. But in the scope of things, the country’s rise to richness was to be short lived; wealth was squandered on corrupt politicians and wasted by misguided government economic policies.

Well into the 20th century, beef production remained central to the Argentine economy, but the country’s love for beef, and the persona that goes with it, today serves as a double-edged sword. The cattle industry often got caught in the mix as the government continually kept a lid on beef prices to keep food cheap, as well as to quiet social unrest and quell food inflation.

And beyond political manipulation, mostly in the form of export restrictions, today’s Argentine beef producers also claim market control by the meat packing companies, oppressive environmental scrutiny and competition with soybean and corn farmers for the better land.

So, as the Argentine beef industry tries to maintain a foothold in the global marketplace, cattle producers there feel like with each step forward, they get pushed two steps back. Still, there’s optimism and room for resiliency.

Part 2 of this series will look at the 21st-century Argentine cattle industry and provide some insight into its future and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

In this series of reports on “Global BEEF Production,” the author draws on years of studying and analyzing global beef systems. His extensive travel to many of the world’s leading beef-producing countries offers a first-hand, objective look at the challenges and opportunities beef producers worldwide face in a highly competitive protein marketplace.