Argy bargy olive branch??

Argentina's government unveiled a package of measures on Monday to help small farmers in a bid to end a 19-day-old farm strike against a tax hike on soy exports.

Economy Minister Martin Lousteau said small-scale farmers would be given a rebate on soy and sunflower export taxes as well as compensation for transport costs for those in far-flung areas. "We must differentiate for small farmers," he said in a televised speech.

Lousteau said the government would offer refunds on export taxes equivalent to the loss that these smaller producers have incurred since the tax was raised under a new system introduced on March 11, when it provoked farmers to block roads and withhold supplies.

Vowing to challenge the heavy concentration of soy production in the hands of a few large producers, Lousteau said the measure would cover 80% of all producers, those who produce just 20% of the country's total output. Additionally, special transport subsidies will be given to small producers in Argentina's more distant, poorer northern provinces.

And in what he said was a bid to shift more production to traditional products, Lousteau said cheap credit plans would be offered to dairy producers.

As with the measure announced on March 11, which put in place a sliding-scale soy export tax rate based on international prices - and which initially boosted it from a fixed rate of 35% to 46%, according to the prevailing international price for soy - Lousteau argued that the latest measures were consistent with an attempt to reduce the dominance and concentration of big soy producers.

He spoke in advance of President Cristina Fernandez, whose much-anticipated speech comes as Argentines faces ever-growing food shortages in supermarkets and stores.

Meanwhile Argentine border police cleared a roadblock in the central province of Entre Rios, allowing trucks stranded by the country's longest farmers' strike to get through as the government seeks to end food shortages. Roadblocks in other parts of the country continued, and the farmers cleared from the Entre Rios roadblock pledged to mount protests elsewhere.