This is a typical example of the country we saw in 3 days of extensive driving. When I asked our guide how far this type of country continues for she said “all the way to the borders in every direction!”

THE Oriental Republic of Uruguay is about 20 percent smaller than Victoria with a human population of 3.5 million and a cattle population of around 12 million head.

I was fortunate enough to travel through the country during late November with a group of Australians accompanying Lach Mackinnon who has a number of cattle projects around the south, central and west of the country.

The landscape is magnificent in every respect. The land is mostly gently rolling plains of highly fertile soils supported by a wonderfully reliable temperate climate with an annual rainfall of around 1,200mm spread out across the year. The country is extremely well watered with a number of rivers, lakes and dams with a plentiful supply of shallow underground water.

While beef is the main export commodity at close to a billion$ USD value traded in 2022, forestry and cropping are the most profitable agricultural activities for Uruguay’s farmers. Most farms we visited managed a mixture of all three activities.

A good indication of the quality of the soils is to calculate the stocking density implied by 12 million head grazing on the total land area of 176,000 square km or 17,600,000 hectares which equates to a stocking density across the entire nation of 1.46 head of cattle per hectare. Considering that cropping and forestry activities are quite substantial and that Uruguay has about 6 million sheep, the actual stocking density for cattle is probably closer to 1 animal to the hectare.

The majority of the cattle are temperate breeds dominated by Angus genetics representing more than 50pc of all breeds and continuing to grow in popularity. Cattle are finished on grass and in feedlots.

With probably the world’s highest ratio of cattle to humans, export sales represent the bulk of the cattle business.  China is their largest export market followed by the USA and the EU where Uruguay has a significant Hilton quota. JBS and Minerva are the largest beef processors. Cattle are also exported live with Turkey as one of the main markets for beef cattle while China is the primary destination for dairy heifers.

Although Uruguay has been free of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) for many years, its two neighbours in Argentina and Brazil are not and the long borders are not set up with high biosecurity measures. This means that it is not possible for the Uruguayan farmers to stop vaccinating as the risk of incursion is still relatively high so  the herd is protected with annual FMD vaccination. This means that while market access is quite extensive, all exported beef is deboned and deglanded as per FMD beef export protocols. The cattle herd is infected with Bovine Tuberculosis and Brucellosis at low levels with annual testing.

Neighbouring Argentina has a dysfunctional political system and a disastrous economy with an inflation rate of about 130pc per year while Uruguay has a boringly normal democratic government with inflation running at about 6pc. Everywhere we went there we saw new road and rail infrastructure designed to support the rural industries. The capital of Montevideo is a lovely old colonial centre with some of the best beach resorts in South America to the east of the city.

As you can see, I was very impressed with Uruguay and cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone wishing to visit South America and see how things can work when a country with magnificent natural resources is well managed.

This has to be a “goldilocks” climate – not too wet, not too dry, not too hot, not too cold, just right!

The latitude of central Uruguay is in the mid 30’s similar to South Australia just north of Adelaide. These photos were taken in the last week of November.

Natural native pastures provide outstanding livestock grazing with a huge number of different species providing exceptional nutrition. After areas are cropped they are replanted with conventional improved pastures. The largest crops by production are rice and soy with corn, wheat, barley and oats also quite common. Forestry blocks are scattered all over the countryside.

The farms in the photos above are around the Florida area roughly 100+km to the north of Montevideo.