Smoked Aires

The picture I shot from my window view (compare below) appeals at first to be an impression of the beginning autumn in Buenos Aires. In fact it has nothing to do with the season's change. Since half a week the city is covered in smoke and smells like a big campfire site. The farmers of the river delta are burning their fields to prepare the land easily for the next seed. Some 70.000 hectars are burning and because the rain is missing, it causes the biggest smoke in Buenos Aires since the beginning of weather chronicles. While the practise of burning the fields is undertaken by the farmers year by year, for the first time the wind blows in the direction of the capital, whereas in recent years only Rosario, sencond largest city of Argenina, suffered from the smoke. Therefore, political discussion has been started about the effects on health and environment and about possible means against the farmers. Who looks for the deeper reasons of the smoke encounters once more: la soya. Since the bean needs a lot of nutrients and is grown in huge monocultures, fires have become bigger and bigger over the recent years. At the moment the only solution is waiting for rain to come and the wind to change.