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Record low flock / Uruguayan beef makes a come back / 587,000 Argentine live overseas / Joint Mercosur-France air exercises / “Social” credit for Argentina

Record low flock
The Uruguayan flock will have signaled an all time low by next June 30 when sheep numbers reach 11,152,000, the smallest population since early last century. In its best years Uruguay had a flock ranging between 25 and 28 million, mostly double purpose Corriedale. Since the collapse of wool prices in 1989 the numbers have consistently dropped, including an additional 8% in 2001, according to official Agriculture and Livestock Department statistics.
However there are indications of a possible reversal of the situation given the recovery of international wool prices, and overseas opportunities to sell quality organic lamb and mutton.
Slaughtering in Uruguayan abattoirs during the last twelve months has dropped 47%, from 1,83 million in 2001, to 1,1 million in the same period this year, meaning farmers are holding back on reproductive and wool producing categories. Live sheep sales overseas have also plummeted dramatically with exports below 200,000 head.
But even when farmers are trying to increase their flocks, weather conditions have not been favourable: lambing was 56% in 2001 compared to 62% in 2000, and 70% in normal seasons. Besides, this last summer excessive rains caused an additional 12% mortality among spring lambs and other sanitary problems.
The Uruguayan Wool Secretariat estimates that if wool prices remain strong the Uruguayan flock will reach a turning point this 2002/2003 season, gradually beginning to recover towards a more manageable number between 16 and 18 million sheep.

Uruguayan beef makes a come back
After the devastating effects of foot and mouth disease outbreaks last year, Uruguay's foreign sales of beef are expected to begin recovering and reach 200,000 tons this year. In normal years Uruguay was exporting between 350,000 and 400,000 tons of beef, sheep meat and other by products.
Dr. Recaredo Ugarte, Director of Livestock in the Uruguayan Ministry of Agriculture indicated that the during the first quarter of 2002 Uruguay shipped overseas 60,000 tons of beef, compared to 95,000 tons a year ago. The FAM outbreak was confirmed in April 2001. The European Union with 15,000 tons was the leading client, followed closely by Israel with 12,000 and Egypt 5,500.
"Although we're constantly in the outlook for new markets, our target is the recovery of Nafta (United States, Canada and Mexico), which will still require some time given the legal sanitary shortcomings", said Dr. Ugarte in direct reference to the FAM limitations on sales to those countries.
Before the outbreak of FAM in Uruguay, which came over from Argentina and Brazil, Nafta countries had become the main destination of Uruguayan beef and with the highest prices.
Although Uruguay has now recovered the condition of free of FAM with vaccination, and has resumed sales to the European Union, before it can send fresh cuts to United States and Mexico it must be declared free of FAM without vaccination.

587,000 Argentine live overseas
According to a survey from the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 587,000 Argentines reside permanently overseas. Of this number, 220,845 are officially registered in Argentine consulates, while the rest, 366,000 not registered, is an estimate of the different consular offices.
As impressive as this number might be it's hard to establish a tendency since the last scientific paper on Argentine Migratory Dynamics is dated in 1985 and covers 1955-1984, a period of much political turmoil that ends with the restoration of democracy. In that period it was possible to determine that two thirds of Argentines residing in the United States had more than the years of education, that is a highly qualified migration.
One of the demographic experts that worked in the 1955/84 report and currently working in Santiago de Chile, Susana Schkolnik believes this is still the prevailing tendency. "Educated people have more contacts, it gives them greater mobility, besides the fact that the highly educated can also perform menial jobs so their range of work possibilities is greater", said Ms. Schkolnik. The exodus of highly qualified Argentines is believed to have began in the sixties, with a great boost during the rule of former military dictator General Juan Carlos Onganía in 1966. In July 1966 Onganía sent troops into university compounds ("searching for communists") and thousands of Argentine scientists and academics left the country for the developed world in search of better working conditions and lesser political pressures. It was the beginning of what is known as the "brain drain". A symbol of that period is Dr. Cesar Milstein who left for England and twenty years later obtained a Nobel Prize in Medicine, says Lelio Marmora a migration expert from Buenos Aires University.
Between 1976 and 1983 another 30,000 qualified Argentines were forced into exile by the notoriously bloody military Juntas, and even if some returned with the recovery of democracy they left a network of contacts in Europe and North America.
In the late eighties and early nineties in the midst of hyperinflation and job instability during the transition period of Presidents Raúl Alfonsín and Carlos Menem, it is estimated 30,000 Argentines left in search of a better future, according to Mr. Marmora.
The latest wave of emigrants is defined as rather "chaotic and desperate", and responds to people who between 2000 and 2002 lost their jobs in Argentina and leave mainly for the countries of their ancestors in Europe, not necessarily with the same level of education as previous Argentine emigrants.
Although there are no official numbers, it is estimated 140,000 emigrated during this last crisis.
Mr. Marmora compares these numbers with the recorded 10 million European immigrants that arrived in Argentina between 1860 and 1930, plus another 3 million after Second World War. Of the first group over half remained in Argentina while from the second, three out of four returned to their countries of origin.
However Mr. Marmora points out that for each Argentine in Spain there are ten Spaniards in Argentina and for each Argentine in Italy, twenty Italians in Argentina.

Joint Mercosur-France air exercises
French built Mirage fighter bombers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and France participated during a week in the Southern Cross joint air co-ordination exercises in Southern Brazil.
Although the operation organized by the French and hosted by Brazilians in the powerful Canoas air base was seen as a Mirage Dassault sales promotion, the joint exercise in combination with a French Air Force AWAC was an excellent opportunity to test Mercosur air forces capabilities.
France participated with six of its latest model Mirage 2000 and Argentina with six Mirage V Dagger, three of them veterans of the Falklands war involved in the sinking of HMS Brilliant, Arrow and Alacrity. Brazil and Chile also displayed their air might, while the Uruguayan Air Force Commander General José Malaquín was invited as an observer. "This is evidence of the mutual trust, peace and friendship in the Southern Cone and Mercosur", said Brigadier Carlos de Almeida Baptista Commander in Chief of the Brazilian Air Force.
"Our pilots have a chance to meet their counterparts and this generates a friendship that will extend for the whole of their careers", indicated General Patricio Ríos Ponce, Commander of the Chilean Air Force.
During the exercise France and Mercosur countries were part of a coalition defending an invaded country, "it's important countries learn how to work in coalitions, such as happened in the Gulf, Kosovo and Afghanistan", pointed out General Patrick Thouverez Commander of French Air Operations.
However Brazilian Brigadier Baptista quickly pointed out that "this is no springboard for a military Mercosur coalition, not does it mean we're involved in an arms race, it's simply an opportunity to test air capabilities".

"Social" credit for Argentina
Argentina cancelled a 680 million US dollars World Bank credit due this week avoiding a default with multilateral financial organizations. However almost simultaneously, the Interamerican Development Bank, IDB, granted Argentina its first international credit since last December, when the country defaulted on its 141 billion US dollars foreign debt.
The 700 million US dollars credit earmarked for social welfare programs will be handed out in equal installments during an 18 months period. The repayment of the World Bank loan was made from a "special fund" created in December 2000 when the country received the first leg of an important financial assistance package.
The Argentine government is currently involved in critical discussions with the International Monetary Fund to obtain additional assistance to help the country overcome one of the worst recessions ever and restore international credit. Argentine financial officials refused last week to anticipate how the President Duhalde administration was going to face this week's repayment, particularly when the country is in the brink of insolvency with Central Bank reserves standing at 11,7 billion US dollars, clearly insufficient to repay frozen US dollar assets in the banking system belonging to angry holders of deposits. The 680 million US dollars is the first reimbursement of a 2,5 billion US dollars loan from 1998.
Explaining the extent of the new social aid IDB president Enrique Iglesias said "the 700 million is just an initial contribution to the problems facing Argentina in the social field. We know there are a lot of activities that are not functioning in social welfare and we also want to express our confidence in Argentina".
The Duhalde administration is expected to announce this week a subsidy program for unemployed heads of family, at an equivalent of 50 US dollars per month. The program is expected to benefit 1,050,000 heads of family.