Argentina: FACMA Updates Indicative Contractor Rates for October, Anchored to a $1,492.50 Dollar
Argentina’s potato sector runs on contractors. In the southeast of Buenos Aires province — the country’s main fresh-potato region, stretching from Balcarce to Tandil — a large share of soil preparation, planting, spraying and desiccation is outsourced to specialized machinery firms. That makes the twice-yearly rate cards issued by the Federación Argentina de Contratistas de Máquinas Agrícolas (FACMA) a direct input into potato production economics. The federation has now updated its indicative prices for the principal agricultural services, with effect from 1 October 2026.
The new values were calculated using a reference exchange rate of $1,492.50 per dollar and a diesel price of $1,998.93 per litre. All amounts are quoted without VAT. FACMA stresses that the figures are orientative references: actual quotes can move with the characteristics of the plot, the state of the terrain, travel distance, the size of the job and operative conditions. The federation builds the rates up from the replacement cost of machinery, fuel consumption, labour, maintenance and equipment depreciation.
In soil preparation — the first cost block a potato grower faces each season — a light double-action disc harrow pass with 20 discs is now referenced at $31,790.32 per hectare, rising to $57,222.58 per hectare for a 36-disc unit and $70,767.60 for double-action harrows of more than 36 discs. Heavy work is priced accordingly: a Rome-type heavy harrow is listed at $63,061.90 per hectare, a heavy disc harrow at $68,486.34, and a subsoiler pass at $58,162.52. A chisel pass comes in at $37,195.90, and land levelling at $44,975.28 per hectare.
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Planting and seeding rates show the premium attached to precision. Direct seeding of fine grain at 20-centimetre spacing is referenced at $54,435.29 per hectare, while coarse grain at 52 centimetres — the category under which potato and similar row crops are typically quoted — reaches $64,461.27. A conventional seeder for fine grain is listed at $62,144.44 per hectare. Moving machinery between farms adds $9,500 per kilometre, a line item that matters in a region where contractors service scattered lots across the Tandilia and Ventania hill systems.
The spraying table is arguably the most consequential for potato producers, given the crop’s intensive protection schedule against late blight and other pressures. Ground spraying with a tractor is referenced at $15,223.54 per hectare without water supply and $17,581.58 with water; self-propelled equipment runs $16,678.90 and $19,037.13 respectively. Liquid fertilizer application is listed at $24,406.81 per hectare, and the application of defoliants or desiccants — a near-universal operation before potato harvest — at $19,037.13. Spraying under windy conditions jumps to $36,423.76 per hectare, while selective application with the Weed-It system is priced at $53,096.95 and banded application at $43,077.86.
Two alternatives frame the technology choice. Drone application is referenced at $23,412.36 per hectare — above self-propelled ground spraying but well below selective systems — while aerial application by aircraft ranges from $15,321.89 per hectare within 10 kilometres of the airstrip to $18,771.86 at 20–30 kilometres, with longer distances left to negotiation.
For growers, the October card lands at a delicate moment: it fixes a peso benchmark for the season’s heaviest cost lines while explicitly tying future revisions to the exchange rate and diesel. With rates denominated in a currency under persistent inflationary pressure and anchored to fuel, the FACMA table functions less as a price list than as an index of the cost climate in which Argentine potato farming will operate through the spring work peak.
Source: Argenpapa / FACMA — indicative agricultural service rates, October 2026
