The Russian market which has been the main buyer of Uruguayan beef helping to boost cattle prices has virtually ceased operations according to Uruguayan exporters who claim deals are limited to small shipments of livers and tongues.
Brazil stands on the brink of becoming an agricultural superpower and is one of the few countries in the world with the climate, technology, farming practices and the sheer quantity of land to be able to satisfy the surging global appetite for food in the coming decades.
Uruguayan investors have purchased an estimated 1.1 million hectares in the Paraguayan Chaco, (heartland of landlocked Paraguay) in spite of the fact land prices have quadrupled in the last two years. The record year was 2010 with 200.000 hectares.
Paraguay recovered full status of “country free of foot and mouth disease with vaccination” following the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) decision to lift the “high vigilance zone” over 1.2 million cattle.
Uruguayans eat an average of 58.2 kilos of beef which makes them the world’s leading consumers per capita, per annum according to the country’s president of the National Meats Institute, INAC, Alfredo Fratti.
Cattle breeders in Paraguay and Chilean are suffering the consequences of a particularly severe austral winter which has killed hundreds of cattle and threatens the lives of tens of thousands more.