MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan Rural Association Vice-president valued visit from Falklands producers: “They have an impeccable model”

Falklands Adam Dawes, Senior Agricultural Advisor with Dr. Gonzalo Valdes, ARU Vice-president. Photo: Sebastián Astorga

The exchange between agricultural producers in the Falkland Islands and specialists in the Uruguayan sheep sector has become stronger in recent days since a delegation from the islands toured the country visiting sites related to the textile industry.

 Dr. Gonzalo Valdes, Vice President of the Rural Association of Uruguay (ARU), stressed Monday the importance of the exchange from producer to producer and the advantages of establishing ties with a textile industry of “very good” quality.

“We met the people and their impeccable production model. We saw another reality, very different from that of Uruguay, with very good quality of wool,” Valdes told MercoPress from the Expo Prado rural show in Montevideo, about a similar trip made by a Uruguayan delegation of technicians and producers to the Falklands this year.

The number of sheep in the islands until 2018 was around 490,000 compared to a population of 3,200 people. There are about 153 sheep per inhabitant, so the exchange of producers goes beyond research.

The exchange of rural producers is taking place with the idea of “supporting, accompanying and also absorbing from them what they have to contribute,” Valdes said to this news agency. “(Uruguayan) workers are going (to the Falkland Islands). On our part there is a great openness to any concern of them,” he expressed.

”The idea was not only to come to the Expo Prado to attend a stand, but also to take advantage of the opportunity - since the logistics for the team to arrive in Uruguay was complicated - for them to make a tour with the wool issue. That visit came with the idea of (making) an exchange of producers and making a contact from producer to producer,“ added the leader of the ARU.

On the other part, Daniel Pereira, a veterinarian and sheep advisor of the Department of Agriculture of the government of the islands and member of the visiting delegation, told El Observador that they had an “excellent impression” of Uruguay in the sheep industry.

Pereira compared Uruguay’s industry with the island’s, noting that, in the case of the Falklands, with an agricultural industry based on sheep and especially in wool production, ”with a good standard of living“, considering the good value that it is achieved by wool, with producers who live and work in a though climate, to which they have learned to adapt.

Valdes valued the climate factor, which affects both industries in different ways. ”We do not have adverse weather conditions, but they have a great sanitary advantage,“ claiming that it is easier to manage diseases that affect flocks in climates such as the Falklands.

Pereira stressed to El Observador that there was ”a very good exchange“ and the idea is to ”deepen that“ between two agricultural industries, stressing that in these moves ”the sheep unites a lot“ and ”the way of being of the countrypeople” is also a factor of union.