TOSTADO , Argentina ( CNN ) -- The northern province of Santa Fe usually boasts lush vegetation in September -- the Southern Hemisphere 's spring -- but not this year , as Argentina grapples with its worst drought in a century . Cattle in Argentina 's Patagonia region . `` Hopelessness approaches , but you realize that hopelessness makes you crazy , '' said Jose Miguel Zabala , a cattleman in Tostado , a town full of hungry , thirsty animals . `` You give up hope , but there is no solution , there is no one who can alleviate the problem . '' Zabala is managing 900 head of cattle , 130 short of his usual complement . So far this year , fewer than 200 millimeters ( 7.9 inches ) of rain have fallen , less than a third of the 600 millimeters that usually have fallen by this time . Salt that has concentrated in the remaining well water is slowly poisoning his remaining animals . He and his fellow cattlemen know that more deaths are inevitable . The country 's farm sector had already been hurt this year during four months of strikes held to protest an export-tax hike ordered in March by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner . Meanwhile , it 's not just the old and weak cows that are at risk . Young , pregnant cows are dying , too . Government figures indicate that the drought is responsible for the deaths of about 15 percent of the area 's 1 million head of cattle . And the impact is creeping into other farming sectors . `` We are almost at the limit of the last date that we can plant sunflowers , '' said Sixto Periche , of the National Institute of Farming Technology . `` If it does n't rain this week , they wo n't plant sunflowers . ''
Prolonged lack of rainfall puts Argentina 's cattle at risk . So far , less than one - third usual rainfall has fallen in South American country . Extended strikes by farmers and export - price hike has affected farming productivity .