SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia, Oct 17, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - In the department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia's breadbasket, farmers hope a change in government will bring an end to hobbling fuel shortages, allowing their sector to become the savior of a struggling economy.

Snaking lines of cars and trucks at gas stations have become a common sight in the dollar-starved South American country, and many farmers rely on fuel bought at great expense on the black market.

On Sunday, two rightwing candidates with promises of change will vie for the presidency, ending two decades of socialist rule in the country of some 12 million people.

"I've been here since last night. I had to sleep in the car," Diego Mercado, a dairy farmer, told AFP in Santa Cruz city, where he had traveled some 70 kilometers (43 miles) from his farm in search of fuel.

While he can spare the time to wait in a queue with hundreds of others for gasoline, "the cows don't wait," the 39-year-old told AFP while leaning against a dry petrol pump.

In order to ensure a reliable supply of fuel for the tractor he uses to carry food for his animals, Mercado must buy fuel on the black market even though "it costs three times as much."

Oil and natural gas were long Bolivia's economic backbone, fueling a period of rapid economic growth under former president Evo Morales from about 2006 to 2014.

But as successive governments neglected investment in the sector, oil production plummeted, along with the foreign currency it generated.

- Swing to the right -

In a first voting round in August, crisis-weary citizens roundly rejected the socialist MAS party founded by Morales and blamed by many for shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food, as well as economic recession and high inflation.

Two rightwing candidates -- ex-president Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga of Bolivia's Freedom and Democracy (Libre) alliance and senator Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Party -- go head-to-head in Sunday's runoff.

Both have proposed doing away with a universal fuel subsidy, keeping it in place only for public transportation and vulnerable economic sectors such as agriculture.

"I have confidence in Tuto. He said he will bring back the dollars and the fuel," cattle farmer Edwin Cortes, 45, told AFP in the same Santa Cruz fuel line as his colleague Mercado.

- 'Strong shock measures' -

Farmers in the Santa Cruz department produce 60 percent of Bolivia's beef and nearly 90 percent of its soybeans.

Among them, Alejandro Diaz, 44, cultivates soy and sorghum and raises 3,600 head of cattle on his 4,000-hectare (9,900-acre) ranch some three hours' drive from Santa Cruz city.

While supervising the weighing of dozens of bulls, he told AFP the next president "will have to take very strong shock measures" to revive the economy.

Diaz, a former president of the Fegasacruz regional farmers' federation, is hoping in particular for an end to export quotas and better access for his products to international markets.

"Bolivia could triple its agricultural exports in five years and become an economic sector as important, if not more so, than the gas industry," said the farmer, who also has no choice but to buy diesel on the black market.

Anapo, Bolivia's 14,000-member association of oilseed and wheat producers, agrees the agricultural sector can help revive Bolivia's economy and create much-needed jobs with the right assistance from the government.

And while its president Abraham Nogales assured AFP this can be done "with respect for the environment," green groups worry about the impact of an agricultural explosion.

"The main drivers of deforestation are livestock farming and agro-industrial crops like soybeans," biologist Nataly Ascarrunz, director of the Bolivian Institute for Forest Research (IBIF), told AFP.

Last year, over 12.6 million hectares (31.1 million acres) of land were burned for land clearance in Bolivia, she said -- nine million hectares (22.2 million acres) in the Santa Cruz department alone.