Panic Sweeps Argentine Pampas as Farmers' Old Nemesis Returns

Times were tough for growers and ranchers under Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Fernandez's running mate who was president between 2007 and 2015, when Macri took over.

She curbed exports, capped domestic prices and demonized farmers, grouping them with what she depicted as a greedy clique of businessmen who imperiled her leftist reforms. Her first term was marred by huge protests over taxes on crop shipments.

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Reumann has taken other steps to safeguard his finances. One is conventional enough. He's trying to lock in prices now with buyers for wheat he put in the ground this past winter.

The other appears more unusual, almost desperate. He's only applying a small dose of fertilizer to the wheat. Whatever grows will grow, he figures, but he's not going to spend more money on a crop that Alberto Fernandez, Macri's rival in the Oct. 27 vote, could force him to sell at deeply discounted prices.

"If Fernandez the populist governs, farmers will produce just to subsist," said Juan Ouwerkerk, president of Alfa, a farmers' cooperative in southern Buenos Aires province, Argentina's bread basket. "It could be a train wreck."''