Since 2008 Argentina's lost 30,000 cattle ranchers, expert says

Fernando Canosa, a cattle specialist from Argentina, has estimated that nearly 30,00 cattle ranchers got out of the business since 2008, when the Argentine government imposed a price-fixing policy to meat. The number is equivalent to 10 percent of the previous total number of producers of meat in the country. In an interview to local paper Ámbito Financiero, Canosa explained that exports became “marginal” for the meat sector over the years. “The demand is pushed mostly by (local) consumption. We hope that (the policies) rectified”, said the expert. Source

This 2007 Bloomberg article explains:

The government has imposed a maximum price of 2.5 pesos (81 U.S. cents) per kilo of live steers while the producers demand a price higher than 3 pesos per kilo, Gallo Llorente said. The ranchers say that current prices are below their production costs. Last year, Kirchner banned meat exports in a bid to force producers to sell more in local markets, helping lower domestic prices.

Could it happen here?  It already has.  Forty-two years ago Nixon imposed wage & price controls:

On Aug. 15, 1971, in a nationally televised address, Nixon announced, “I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States.” After a 90-day freeze, increases would have to be approved by a “Pay Board” and a “Price Commission,” with an eye toward eventually lifting controls — conveniently, after the 1972 election. There was no national emergency in the summer of ‘71: unemployment stood at 6 percent, inflation only a point higher than it is now. Yet, after Nixon’s announcement, the markets rallied, the press swooned, and, even though his speech pre-empted the popular Western Bonanza, the people loved it, too — 75 percent backed the plan in polls. By the time Nixon reimposed a temporary freeze in June 1973, Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw explain in The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, it was obvious that price controls didn’t work: “Ranchers stopped shipping their cattle to the market, farmers drowned their chickens, and consumers emptied the shelves of supermarkets.”

How did Nixon get this authority?  Congress gave it to him.

First, it’s usually Congress that lays the foundation for an imperial presidency with unconstitutional delegations of authority to the executive branch. The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 gave Nixon legislative cover for his actions.