In the middle of his usual rounds, a worker at a fruit farm near the town of Villa Manzano heard a rushing sound coming from one of the oilwells on the site. He hurried to the farmhouse and told his boss. Within hours, the farm was crowded with trucks from Argentina’s state oil company YPF, which found hydrocarbons had spread through water and soil on the farm.
Such a discovery, says Norma Ramírez, the farm’s owner, has rendered an entire batch of fruit unsuitable for export, costing them as much as 40% of the fruit’s value.
