ARGENTINA was once one of Australia's biggest competitors in the international beef market but restrictive government policy and a string of drought years pushed the South American country from being the world's third-largest beef exporter a decade ago - behind Brazil and Australia - to not even being in the top 10 today.
Eight years ago, Argentina exported 24.6 per cent of its 3.13-million tonne beef production, and it did this without cutting off supplies to its people who had the second-highest annual beef consumption rate in the world, at more than 62 kilograms a person.
This year, it is estimated Argentina will export just 6.8pc of its expected 2.8mt beef yield, well below historical levels.
At the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress in Argentina held in September, meat and livestock markets adviser and researcher Maria Nieves Pascuzzi said much of the decline could be attributed to a drop in beef farmer numbers - about 30,000 producers have left the industry since 2006, and the national herd has dropped by 12 million head.
Ms Nieves Pascuzzi said that in March 2006, the Argentine government banned beef exports for 180 days to combat rising domestic beef prices.
"The prices were rising dramatically, so they intervened," she said.
The ban was followed by a 15 per cent increase in the export tax for fresh beef, which remains today. Exports in 2006 fell to 18.6pc of the country's production.
Instead of continuing to raise cheap beef, Argentine farmers cut herd numbers and planted crops, especially soybean, and the national beef herd dropped from 57Mhd in 2006 to a low of 47.9Mhd in 2010.
Adding to the decline in the cattle herd has been a 65pc reduction in the number of abattoirs operating in the country in the past five years, resulting in the loss of up to 13,000 jobs, according to Ms Nieves Pascuzzi.
"Butchers are very important to us as they sell about 55pc of the meat in the domestic market," she said.
Diamond Rural Society president Leonardo Airaldi farms with his family in the Entre Rios area of the Pampas, Argentina's most productive agricultural region.
"I feel very bad about what has happened to the cattle business in Argentina the past six years," he said.
Mr Airaldi and his family run two cow herds which produce about 2000 head a year for the local market. They grow their calves out for more than a year on pasture, and finish them on a corn silage-based ration.
The Airaldis also sell some of their Hereford and Red Angus breeding stock.
Apart from cutting numbers and planting soybean, beef producers also took to finishing cattle in feedlots instead of the grass-finished product the country had been famous for.
"However, the farmers believe that we can offer meat produced with grain and grass, and there are internal and external markets that demand both types of animals," Ms Nieves Pascuzzi said.
"We have the fields, the climate and the farmers to produce in both systems, on grass and feedlots. Both systems can co-exist and complement each other."
Ms Nieves Pascuzzi said smaller operations accounted for most of the beef production, with 80pc of farmers carrying less than 500 head.
Feedlots, however, operate on a larger scale.
According to Leandro Galatro, marketing coordinator for animal nutrition company Alltech, the average feedlot has a 5000-head capacity, and the biggest feedlots are able to carry 30,000 head.
Mr Galatro said most feedlots bought in cattle to finish for 90 to 100 days at weights of about 300 kilograms.
He said the cattle were killed at lighter weights and produced the tender, tasty meat Argentina was so well known for.
Cattle are generally sold through saleyards, and in the Buenos Aires district lies the largest market in the world.
Liniers market, established in 1901, sits on 34 hectares and sells about 10,000 head each day, accounting for 13pc of total Argentinian sales.
Carla Wiese-Smith is the Australian recipient of the 2013 International Federation of Agricultural Journalists-Alltech Young Leaders Award and attended the IFAJ conference in Argentina in September.
Full report in Stock Journal, October 17 issue, 2013.