Buenos Aires - President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports on Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-eating and beef-exporting nations.
South America's second-largest economy - and a major agricultural exporter - is in full farm belt rebellion over the new sliding-scale increase in export taxes.
At least 9 000 cattle normally enter this capital's sprawling stockyard each day for slaughter, yet not a single animal arrived this week because of the biggest farm and ranch strike in decades.
Scattered shops began emptying of beef, milk, chicken and cooking oil on Tuesday as farm workers mounted the greatest challenge yet to Fernandez's fledgling government.
No end in sight
Taxes on soybeans - another major Argentine export - are being hiked from 35% to 45%, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.
"Bad policies by the government are leaving people without food, without beef," complained Mario Llambias, one of the farm protest organisers who announced on Tuesday that a 13-day old strike would now continue "indefinitely".
However, in a tough speech later in the day, Fernandez announced her government will not grant any concessions to striking farmworkers nationwide, vowing not to "give in to extortion".
The speech drew angry protests from farmworkers, who lit new tire fires on blockaded roads.
Confrontation
About 2 000 people took to the capital's main Plaza de Mayo to denounce the president's speech in a raucous "cacerolazo" - the Spanish word for the kind of pot-banging protests used against political leaders blamed in the 2001-2002 economic crisis.
Television showed similar protests by thousands in rural Tucuman, Santa Fe, and Cordoba provinces as well as outlying agricultural cities in Buenos Aires province.
"She chose a path of confrontation," said Eduardo Buzzi, one of the strike organisers who was first to publicly condemn the president's speech. "Now I ask what will come after this... repression?"
After a searing 2002 economic meltdown, the government replenished its coffers through taxes on surging grain exports and commodity prices. The cash influx powered an economic rebound, with growth rates topping 8% annually.
Recovering economy
Argentina's economy is back on track - and agriculture remains one of its most profitable sectors.
Growing demand for foodstuffs in China and other teeming nations, high oil prices and other shifts in the global economy have all helped pushed grain prices to new highs in recent months.
But the agriculture industry is howling at having to pay more.
"The countryside says 'Enough!'" declared one strike leader, Eduardo Buzzi.
The farmers are demanding to sit down and negotiate a rollback on the new taxes. The government says it won't start talks until the protests stop.
Standoff
"This government will not be pressured," vowed Justice Minister Anibal Fernandez.
The protests have spread far beyond the capital, with sugarcane workers beating cane stalks along highways in north-central Tucuman province, soybean farmers dumping mounds of beans near the border with Uruguay and others setting old pickup trucks ablaze in blocking traffic through orange-growing regions north of Buenos Aires.
Police have managed to keep the most important routes open without wide scale arrests or violence, but the confrontations have been tense.
And now Argentina's consumers are beginning to feel the pinch.
In the country's main stockyard, the Liniers market, a lone cowhand galloped on his horse past empty cattle pens where thousands of cattle usually jostle, and other workers idly sipped mate, a hot Argentine tea on Tuesday.
At nearby butcher shops, white-smocked butchers wiped empty freezers dry as meat ran out.
Caught in the middle
One supermarket group warned of dwindling wheat, rice and pasta supplies in the western city of Mendoza. In eastern Rosario, cooking oil shortages were reported.
"I don't even have chicken left," said one idled butcher, Alfredo Estefano. "We haven't seen a strike like this in 20 years."
The butchers are caught in the middle, he complained. But some shoppers said they are rooting for the farmers, even if shelves go bare.
Pedro Garuso, a 65 year-old retiree, said millions of Argentines are still struggling to live off skimpy pensions eroded by the past economic crisis and soaring inflation.
"The government is like a thief," Garuso said, his shopping bag nearly empty. "If they aren't going after farmers one day they are going after someone else the next."
- AP