NEW YORK CITY, NY - As Argentine officials head to New York to meet with representatives from U.S. hedge fund NML Capital Ltd in the hopes of finding some agreement which would allow them to avoid default, American produce powerhouses in Salinas may be seeing an opportunity for a major investment. 

As AndNowUKnow covered in a previous article, a combination of sky-rocketing inflation and increasing food prices have created what could be a prime market for foreign land purchases in Argentina. USA Today reported that estimates for 2014's inflation rate are between 25-40%, unsustainable numbers for any economy. Because of this serious devaluation of the peso, the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has risen considerably for Argentine products. An American investor looking to speculate could use these exchange rates to their advantage, buying up acres and acres of relatively cheap Argentine farmland.

This latest escalation in the Argentine debt crisis comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case to overturn the previous ruling of U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Griesa. Judge Griesa had ruled that Argentina must repay the full $1.5 billion it owes NML in defaulted bonds NML holds from Argentina's 2001 default.

According to MSN, Argentina had hoped to be able to make interest payments on its current bond obligations without having to also make payments on the defaulted bonds. Payments on these defaulted bonds could trigger payments on additional defaulted bonds owned by other investors amounting to $15 billion. For a country with just $29 billion in reserves, only $16 billion of which is not tied to IMF loans and other illiquid assets, this situation would mean disaster.

"Why not pay the $1.5 billion and end it," reflected President Fernandez in a Business Insider article. "Because there is another more serious problem that the 1% of holdouts create. There's another 7% that, if we pay NML their $1.5 billion, Argentina has to pay them $15 billion...That's half of all the reserves in our Central Bank."

Starting Monday, June 30th, the Argentine government has a 30-day grace period to pay its obligations or work out an acceptable payment plan with its creditors. If it is unable to do either it will default. 

Regardless of what happens, it will be a situation which you can be sure foreign investors will monitor closely.

Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow as we continue to cover this developing story.