By Miguel Lo Bianco

DIAMANTE, Argentina, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Argentine ranchers aided by soldiers were rushing on Friday to move nearly 1 million cattle by boat from islands in the Parana River delta to higher ground before floods reach grazing grounds.

Ranchers expected the river to reach its highest level in the coming weeks but they feared by then it would be too late to evacuate all of the livestock, which in many areas were already grazing in standing waters.

The river, which drains a massive watershed starting in the jungles of Paraguay and Brazil, overflowed in 2007, killing some 300,000 cattle. To avoid a similar disaster, the army was helping ranchers herd their cattle into corrals on the river's shore to be shipped by boat to higher ground.

"The number of heads that are at risk is between 800,000 and 1 million. We're trying to not let 2007 repeat itself," said Jorge Chemez, an agricultural engineer .

Argentina is a leading meat producer but a boom in soybean farming in recent years has forced livestock to graze in marginal zones.

Many ranchers send their cows to the islands of the Parana River to take advantage of grazing lands. But flooding has intensified in the region.

Soy is Argentina's top crop, generating multimillion-dollar revenues, but the increasing amount of land given to the crop has taken away land not only for livestock but also for planting wheat and corn.

Deforestation has opened the way for rivers to spread across the flat landscape and has also increased erosion, clogging streams and rivers with sediment.

"People figure it's because of the deforestation from planting soy, and climate change. All that water that comes down from the north is because of that and it comes down here," said local cattle rancher Carlos Gomez.

"The climate has changed a lot compared to 10 years ago," he said. (Reporting by Nicolas Misculin, Writing by Luis Andres Henao; Editing by Walter Bagley)

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