Fosatti´s

Martin and Raul Fosatti have hosted our group at their ranch, Don Poncho, near Santa Rosa for the last several years and visiting them is a great experience as it is always interesting to see what the Fosatti Brothers have been doing over the last year to improve their operation.

On our first visit to Santa Rosa in 2007, the Fosatti´s had just broke ground on a cooperative packing plant they had organized with some CREA members and other investors to capitalize on the ability to export beef directly to Europe. It has been incredible to watch over the last 5 years the plant open and begin running cattle through it.

This year however, brought a new twist to the saga of the Fosatti Brothers. After 5+ years of drought in La Pampa, they decided to rent 3 tracts of ground in BsAs province a couple hours south of the city. Most of this region is difficult to farm for row crops because it had very clayey soils, no slope, and high salinity. Therefore, they can run cattle on it pretty reasonably. So, all of the cows at Don Pancho are now in BsAs and all of the calves are trucked back to Don Poncho to be backgrounded and finished before they go to slaughter.

I have quizzed Martin and Raul relentlessly over the last several years about where they see Argentina´s beef industry going. Although they can´t say for sure because it is so heavily controlled by government intervention, the one thing they are certain about is that cattle can no longer be finished on grass, frame size and meat yield will have to increase, and cow numbers will continue to decline as the soybean revolution continues to march its way across the Pampas.

Seems that the the US and Argentina have more in common than we thought.

Thank you and have a great day!!