Drought losses at full steam toward $2 billion

It is discounted that That figure will increase and noticeably as the weeks go by.because the rains still do not occur adequately and there are damages whose full magnitude is impossible to define now, what is more, in several cases they will continue to be perceived after 2023.

This amount was indicated by Fernando Mattos, Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries (MGAP), on Friday when a press conference was held to present a new assistance to producers, in this case the distribution of ration with a 75% subsidy in the cost and exclusively for micro-producers with up to 30 cattle in their herds, venture called Food Contingency Plan.

Mattos recalled that at the beginning of February, more than a month ago, a first survey of the damage caused by the water deficitor, based on analysis by technicians from the Office of Agricultural Programming and Policies (Opypa), established losses of US$ 1,175 million.

Dry water, a common postcard in the fields in these summer months.

A little over a month has elapsed “since the last estimate the rains did not occur and we have a productive breakespecially in what are the summer crops”, said the chief, alluding to a loss that is immediately verified.

He also pointed to an example of projected loss, based on a decline in the birth rate of cattle that will determine a noticeable drop in the number of calves that will be obtained next spring, and that “will have consequences within three years,” hand in hand with a lower supply of farms for slaughter and thus meat for export.

Losses: more than in all the dry ones in 30 years

Mattos also expressed that taking as a starting point the last great drought in the country, which occurred in 1989/1990, subsequently “The loss that we are calculating today, in current dollars, without correcting the currency, from the 2022/2023 drought is greater than the sum of the losses from all the other droughts in 30 years, so that the magnitude of this phenomenon is understood climate”.

“It is the greatest loss of agriculture and the national economy in the last 30 years”he affirmed days before, during a tour that he carried out through areas of Río Negro and Soriano, in one of the tours that MGAP leaders and technicians have been carrying out to evaluate the existing problems on a day-to-day basis, receive proposals and report on assistance.

John Samuelle

The losses, only in soybeans, can reach US$ 1,000 million.

The more than US$ 1,800 million of losses at the moment is a highly relevant amount. To realize how much, it is enough to mention that in all of 2022 only for soybean exports (just one of the items now affected) US$ 1,922 million entered Uruguay.

That amount of more than US$ 1.8 billion is more than what entered the country in 2022 from placements of pulp, dairy, wood or rice, for example.

in this accessIt can be seen the complete list of assistances undertakenbased on the Agricultural Emergency, from the MGAP and other state agencies.