Teamters cut main Argentine roads: shortage feared

Hundreds of Argentine truckers blocked rural roadways on Wednesday to demand an end to a nearly three-month-long, bitter standoff between farm sector and government.

Farmers are staging their third protest since March, when government unveiled a new sliding-scale tax system for grain and oilseed exports. They are withholding grains from market to protest the change, which hiked levies on soy, the country's top crop.

The transportation of farm goods has been halted intermittently, and some truckers fed up with the stalemate began blocking all traffic to press for a solution.

"We've put up with this stoically for 87 days, watching how all other transport came and went, and we were the only ones at a standstill," Pablo Trapani, a member of the Cordoba Federation of Automotive Freight Transport, told local radio.

During their first strike, farmers also manned roadblocks, causing some food shortages in Buenos Aires and other urban centers. They later shifted tactics to avoid alienating city dwellers, while still causing problems for President Cristina Fernandez's center-left government.

Television images showed dozens of trucks parked alongside highways while drivers stopped traffic.

These roadblocks "not only fail to help farm conflict, they complicate and slow things up," Eduardo Buzzi, president of the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA), told local radio. The FAA is one of four farm groups leading protests.

"If there's something that we didn't want to have happen, it was that the cities be harmed," Buzzi was quoted as saying by local news agency.

Government has refused to negotiate with farmers as long as they continue striking.

On Wednesday, some farmers and ranchers demonstrated alongside highways and spontaneously blocked roads, mainly to keep trucks carrying food from passing.

In Entre Rios province, hundreds of people showed their support for farmers by waving small blue-and-white Argentine flags as tractors rumbled past the municipal building in the town of Concordia.

They are angry over state intervention in grains and livestock markets dating back to former President Nestor Kirchner's administration. Fernandez succeeded Kirchner, her husband, as president last December.

Her government says higher grains export taxes can help tame food inflation and protect consumers, while allowing the government to promote the redistribution of wealth. Farmers say the tax rates are confiscatory.

Farmers extended their current protest through the weekend, bolstering global soybean prices.

Argentina is a leading world supplier of corn, soybeans, wheat and beef.