Bag silos are missing in full thick harvest

Considered as an essential task within decree 297, which exempts the activities of social, preventive and compulsory isolation, the soybean and corn harvest is progressing in the Pampas region at the rate imposed by quarantine.

Almost without personal contact and maintaining sanitary distances, the personnel who operate the combine, the tractor with the hopper and the truck comply with their sanitary protocols. The objective is to take the production of both grains to the commercialization centers: industries and ports.

However, and beyond being considered a priority, the task of is limited by the lack of an essential input: the bag silo.

In a scenario in which the transport of grains from the fields to the stores, and also to ports, has been reduced, the need for the producer to store harvest in the establishment itself has been complicated.

It is that the demand for the silo bag had already started up in the beginning of the year. The decision of the agricultural companies not to place their production on the market, due to some financial inconveniences exhibited by marketing companies, had generated a first peak in demand.

Then, with the isolation and with the arrival of the harvest, the orders multiplied. With a national market that is estimated to absorb 450,000 bags, the grain bagging system in the field will concentrate around 90 million tons of grain.

A bag silo, nine feet in diameter (2.74 meters) by 70 meters long, can hold, on average, 200 tons. “We are with him stock adequate, but with some delays in logistics. What in previous campaigns was a delivery period between seven to 15 days for the bag to be in the field, has now doubled, “said Leonardo Torreta, commercial manager of Ipesa, the company that concentrates 70 percent of sales of bag silos in the market.

The list of suppliers includes Ipesa (Tierra del Fuego), Plaster (San Luis), ACA (General Pico), Graner (San Luis) and Thyssen (San Luis), among others.

“Demand is exponential and has exceeded expectations,” they acknowledge from Ipesa. “It went from being a savings bank, back in January and February, to becoming a key element due to the difficulties in logistics to bring grain to stores and ports,” said Víctor Accastello, director of supplies for the Asociación de Cooperativas Argentina (HERE).

The company has a plant to make bag silos in General Pico (La Pampa). “This year we were planning to produce 10 percent more; bags are available today, but with delivery in 30 or 40 days, “said the executive.

Introduced more than 25 years ago by Inta technicians from Germany, where it was used to store wet grain as food for livestock, the technology was adapted in the country to collect dry grains and generated the development of machinery for bagging and extraction.