While protests by residents and rural producers are escalating in the interior of Buenos Aires over the poor condition of roads and dirt fields in a vast area severely affected by floods, a new meeting was held in recent days between municipal and regional authorities and a national delegation, to address the problem of water surplus affecting about 5 million hectares.
As a statement from the provincial government said, “5,000 kilometers of that network have already been improved.” It was also said that during the period 2024-2025, the Ministry of Agricultural Development has six completed projects, 28 of which are under implementation and two in the administrative department, within the strategic plan to improve rural roads.
At the meeting held in the municipality of 9 de Julio, the focus of the meeting focused on coordination to analyze the regional situation due to excess water in various cities and rural areas in central Buenos Aires.
The report added that during this year, provincial funds were allocated to municipalities to maintain rural roads, and this item was enhanced by $2,000 million.
However, protests by entities, producers and neighbors are still felt due to the poor condition of many rural roads in the province.
In their repeated demands, they demand more investment and also control over the use of road taxes. For many years, these sectors have claimed that the deterioration of dirt road networks increases the complexity of production and access to basic services.
Complaints from producers from different areas of the Buenos Aires province – among them those from Magdalena and Punta Indio, as well as from the nearby fruit and vegetable center of La Plata – have also been common in recent years due to the inaction of various administrations in providing solutions to the problem of rural roads.
Of course, the problem is not only related to agricultural production, but instead affects the dynamics of towns and cities that remain isolated, where students who cannot access schools among others are affected by an endemic situation that has persisted for several decades.
Especially since regional roads lost their prestige in the 1990s and stopped paying attention to the maintenance of rural roads, among other functional deterioration suffered by a distribution that was at the forefront of the country in terms of its effectiveness.
Last August, representatives of rural production warned this newspaper that rural roads were not adapting to the growth of the agricultural machinery park: “Today, the machines that are planted, most of them are large seeding machines and tractors, and the roads have become very small. A lot of work is needed to improve them.”
As mentioned, in addition to the logistical complexities in producing and transporting grains and animals, the poor condition of the roads – completely submerged today in many cases – makes communication and general dynamics difficult, preventing access to schools and many basic services in the area.
It is hoped that the formulas will be implemented as soon as possible to overcome the multiple problems caused by invalid road networks.
It is clear that rural roads, under these conditions, cause disruption, delays, lack of communication and non-compliance of the population, as well as all kinds of losses to the livestock, agriculture, dairy and related industry sectors, as well as to the general dynamics of the economy and social life.
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