Beefy Facts that may interest you !

The Argentina people have been traditionally the major consumer’s of beef in the world over the past goodness how many years – yep they have been by far the biggest consumers of the holy cow and proud of it. However, all that changed this year when horror of horrors they find that they have been over taken by none other than their very near neighbor’s Uruguay. Uruguayan people now consume more beef than Argentine – not much more but more. Argentines per year are now consuming only 57.2 kilos of beef per year  (down from 69 kilos per year wow) and the beefy Uruguayans 58.2 kilos ( that is a lot of beef for sure)  –not a great difference between then  but after a great show by Uruguay  in the  football World Cup and poor one  by Argentina that must hurt. Why the decline - well one can make some intelligent guesses -it certainly could have something to do with the price of meat which has soared here in the past year – in fact the market price has doubled from 3 pesos per kilo to over 6 pesos – quite an increase. So it could be the price of meat is now expensive for Argentines – it could of course mean that instead of eating meat for breakfast, dinner and tea they are getting into healthier eating and are cutting out the quick beef fix for breakfast! Who knows but it is interesting eh. At the same time Argentina who  were once the largest exporter of beef have now been passed by yep you guessed it little  Uruguay as a major player in the beef exporting world – now considering the size of Argentina and the size of tiny Uruguay that is indeed a surprise .  What in fact happened was that (as some of you who bother to read my blog know (thank you thank you) we suffered a severe drought from 2007 til early last year. With sever restrictions on exporting beef so that the home market could be satisfied farmers sent a more than normal number of cows to market because the price they got here didn’t reflect the international price. That means that there  are less cows in  Argentina  - to make matters worse  in a bid to compensate for the loss of revenue farmers  opted to plant  soya – since the price of soya  has now soared maybe the situation will continue  - farmers will continue to   plant  soya and breed less cows . Certainly beef export controls are hurting farmers and something has to give - watch this space

Aren’t you glad you read these facts ok ok I know you are asking yourself  before you die of boredom is  how does  this affect you  if you are  visiting Argentina steak wise  – is there a beef drought  - are restaurants now selling fish and chips instead of a large  steak . Well the answer you will be relieved to know is no – beef is still very much on   the menu. I was out last night in the  city and went to a great venue to watch a once famous Argentine singer ( Chico Navaro) and had a  Bife Chorizo (steak )– it was a bit more expensive than before but not  much more expensive  that a Big Mac and fries and it was  delicious  - so don’t worry if you come here you will be soon helping the Argentines to get back where they belong -  number one  the beef eating steaks !

This is David Cummings alias the English Gaucho of to count my cows

Oh the Tension

A month or so ago a journalist from the very important Argentine magazine called Lugares (Places) came to stay on La Margarita. We didn’t know she was from the magazine until the last moment and she said she would be writing an article about us. Oh the tension in the past few weeks - we knew the article was going to be published soon but we had no idea what it would say. Even though I love La Margarita I realize I may be a bit biased. This week all tension evaporated, the article was published this month in the   Lugares Sept  edition and it was a lovely lovely  article about the people who work on La Margarita and described how wonderful it is to stay here – course we know that but it is so nice to have it confirmed by   those not  quite so biased as me  .

I am in the city as I write this but just off to La Margarita – we have some guest taking advantage of our self catering units to do some riding

This is David Cummings alias The English Gaucho off to buy a few copies of Lugares to send to my Mum and Dad

Hasta pronto 

Wheat Wheat Wheat

“It’s a funny old game” as Jimmy Greaves once said (what do you mean who is he!) and for sure he was and still is right. Its seems like only last week I was talking to Mario my associate in farming on La Margarita about the possibility of  planting wheat . He quite rightly pointed out that it’s just not worth it – what with the taxes we have to pay and the price of wheat where’s the sense. Me, I had a different option, maybe because I found myself having to sell hotdogs once to earn a crust (don’t knock it it’s not as bad as it sounds) - so for me it all adds up – it’s a philosophy I have had since the day the bank took everything I had from me in the 80s and sent me on the road again with my guitar in hand. I said to Maria, look let’s just do it, doesn’t matter if we only make a few bob it all adds up. Luckily for me Mario listened to this stupid Englishman and agreed that we plant a few hectors and last month we did just that.

Yesterday I was watching TV when a well know investor from the USA was being interviewed.  He said that the only investment that’s make sense at the moment is - yep you guessed   wheat. Well just why that is then you might ask?  I now come back to the great “Sir” Jimmy (have you goggled him yet?). You see in Russia they have a severe drought and have now banned exports of wheat until the end of 2011. Thing about Russia is that it is the third largest exporters of wheat in the world and that’s a whole lot of wheat the world can’t buy now. Every action has a consequence so the saying goes and in this case the consequence is that the price of wheat has soared. I doubt our  few hectors  of wheat will make much of a dent in the market but as Jimmy said “it’s a funny old game”– one minute it’s not worth  the effort of planting something the next its worth its weight in gold .  Our turn for the drought was two years ago and Mario lost his shirt that year- I guess he will be able to buy a new one this year.

This is David Cummings alias The English Gaucho saying well done Argentina since they  have just  beaten  Spain 4-1  in a friendly yep 4 blooming -1 – get your bets on them for  the next World Cup in Brazil they are  near certainties ummm yea well not according to Jimmy s philosophy of course

Saludos

David

Saddle em Up

When I was the oldest ski bum in the world in my guitar playing days in the 90s in the French Alps I skied every day. What  a life  it was   -  get up  - ski all day -   play and sing songs  - get  drunk  - go to bed -   get up -  ski - get drunk well  you get the picture . It didn’t last forever of course in fact it lasted just a few years. I, by then, had saved up enough dinero to buy The Frog and Rostbif in Val Thorens from my very good friend Joy. I did try to do the same as before but running a business and doing all that other stuff well I didn’t have the time. However, once in a while the young ski bums would come down to my bar and tell me to “get my skis you old foggie and come out with us to see if you can still cut it” I took up the challenge more than once and as my creaking old bones made their way back to the bar I was very grateful to the young ones for having dragged me out cos I Ioved to ski and snow board without doubt

Fast forward a decade or two and I am in the same position except different country and different sport. When I first purchased La Margarita it was a time of renovation and we went riding every day in between work – we were like well horse riding bums. I loved it for sure. As we started to do other things such as have guests stay with us, plant soya and wheat or breed cows so the number of times I went riding declined. So it was great last weekend when I was on La Margarita to meet Brina a guest who came to stay on La Margarita. Brina was here to attend a conference on the subject of medical robotics! – she is an expert in this field and she is only 25 cripps! Now it may be unkind to compare her to the ski bums I met in Val Thorens because by my estimation she is probably verging on genius. However, she loved horse riding. She had decided to come direct to La Margarita from the airport to visit us and do some riding for a few days before the conference started. I had dinner with her on her last night and she said I had to ride with her the next day. It was an invitation I readily accepted and the next day we got Lalo to saddle up a couple of horses and off we went. I had a thoroughly lovely ride talking to her about her profession and Brina I would like to say thank you for the invite to ride with you - it was lovely to meet you and who knows maybe see you back with us some day   and good luck with your studies 

This is David Cummings alias The English Gaucho promising myself to ride more often