Severe drought in Argentina

Project participants Maru Skansi and Silvia Núñez from Argentina’s Meteorological Service prepared a report on the recent drought conditions in the Argentine Pampas. During 2008, total precipitations ranged between 40 and 60 percent of “normal” values (1961-1990).

The severe drought has had large negative impacts on Argentina’s mostly rainfed agriculture. According to newspaper Ámbito Financiero (24 February 2009) the 2008-2009 production of wheat, soybean, maize and sunflower is estimated at 64.4 million tons,  a decrease of 24.8 million tons with respect to the previous cycle. The economic impact of this decrease is about 6200 million dollars, or 2.2% of Argentina’s GDP.

The spatial extent and severity of the drought is described by the 12-month Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for February 2009), which places in context cumulative rainfall anomalies since March 2008. The SPI, implemented by the Met Service with support from this project, shows very dry or extremely dry conditions over most of central-eastern Argentina.

More information about the SPI…

Workshop on land use changes, biofuels and rural development in the Plata Basin

Carolina Favre (Argentine M.S. student funded by the IAI) attended a workshop of social scientists from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia collaborating in a project on land use and biofuels in the Río de la Plata Basin funded by the IAI and Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC). The workshop took place in Tandil, Argentina, on May 9-13, 2009.

Carolina presented a summary of progress in our agent-based model of changes in land use and structure of production systems in the Argentine Pampas. She also had an intense and productive exchange of ideas with workshop participants in preparation for her own thesis work on land use changes in the Argentine Chaco.

Group picture of workshop participants	Participants interviewed farmers from the Tandil region

Argentine researchers visit Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Miami

Federico Bert (School of Agronomy) and Santiago Rovere (School of Engineering), both at the University of Buenos Aires visited project colleagues at the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) outside Chicago. During the week of March 2-6, 2009, Santiago and Federico worked with ANL’s Mike North and Eric Tatara on the design and implementation of the second phase of the project’s agent-based model of agricultural production in the Pampas. This phase will involve endogenous formation of land rental prices in the Pampas, as well as a GIS space for visualization of model output.

After their stay at ANL, Santiago and Federico spent a week visiting project participants at the University of Miami. They met with  Don Olson to explore if the agent model and a systems dynamics model (i.e., two different approaches) arrive at similar results. They also met with Dave Krantz (visiting from Columbia University), Kenny Broad and Bob Meyer who provided useful advice on decision-making mechanisms.

Santiago Rovere, Mike North and Federico Bert in Chicago.	Federico Bert at the entrance of ANL’s Center for Complex Adaptive Agent Systems Simulation.
Dave Krantz (Columbia Univ.), Kenny Broad and Bob Meyer (Univ. of Miami), Santiago Rovere and Federico Bert.	Santiago Rovere and Federico Bert meet with Don Olson.