At the opening ceremony of the Expoactiva Nacional in Soriano, whose edition No. 25 began this Tuesday and will run until Saturday, March 19, President Luis Lacalle Pou highlighted the value of agriculture as a generator of a better quality of life in rural areas and for it gave an example to a countryman from Ombúes de Lavallecity of Colonia, surrounded by agricultural enterprises.
The mandatary He was on the property for about two hours.. He took dozens of photos with producers, joked with the president of the host rural entity remembering an illicit high school resource, drove a corn harvester estimated to cost half a million dollars, and took away several gifts. From a mug to a craft knife.
Analia Pereira
Cup and invitation to the Festival of Agriculture.
In the middle of the field, after arriving by helicopter shortly before the 15th hour, Lacalle Pou gave a speech in which he remarked, among other considerations, that the government has a commitment not only with agricultural production, but also with the person who lives in rural areas.
Upon arrival, the aircraft turned over the exhibition site located 25 kilometers from Mercedes, at kilometer 253 of Route 2.
“There is still some pamphlet speech”, affirmed Lacalle Pou. Immediately, he pointed out that despite these speeches, if the field earns one more dollar, the impact of that is immediately noticeable, especially in the campaign towns.
“I was just greeted by a countryman from Ombúes de Lavalle. I saw it in 2014, I saw it in 2017 and I saw it a few days ago. There is a difference. When the countryside walks, Ombúes de Lavalle flourishes like so many payments in the country.”, emphasized the president and immediately there was one of several applause that his concepts generated in a speech that lasted for seven minutes, on a very hot afternoon and in front of dozens of businessmen from the agribusiness sector.
Previously, Jorge Andrés Rodríguez, president of the Rural Association of Soriano (ARS), organizer of the traditional display of technology for agriculture in operation; Guillermo Besozzi, mayor of Soriano; and Fernando Mattos, Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries (MGAP).
john samuel
In command of the corn harvester.
“I’m going back in civilian clothes”
At the end of his speech, Rodríguez, president of the host union, said that many of the things that are seen in the exhibition hall where there are 350 exhibiting firms consider a message that the ARS wishes to convey on purpose.
An example, he mentioned, was a huge seeder that was behind the authorities, of an Argentine brand. And immediately he added: “Know something Mr. President (looking at Lacalle Pou), representative of all Uruguayans, the Rural Association of Soriano is going to sow, it will always sow, with you or without you”.
Minutes later, at the end of his speech, the president replied: “The president (Rodríguez) threw a center at me. ‘We are going to continue planting whether it is there or not’… I have to go, there is no doubt in your mind that I am leaving on March 1, 2025, now… Do you know the worst? I’m going back in civilian clothes. And I want to see if they continue planting and I have no doubt that they will.”.
The exchanges, in a friendly way, began when Rodríguez was going to start his presentation and Lacalle Pou told him that it was not worth using “little braids”given that the director of the union organizing the exhibition had some notes.
john samuel
Knife and bear with guampa handle, one of the gifts to the president.
UAM apples
The president was two hours. At one point he said that he had attended other editions of the Expoactiva, but “cast”. This is the first time he was invited. He tasted apples that the General Farm Directorate brought from the Metropolitan Agrifood Unit; from the stand of the Agricultural Museum of Carmelo came to give him a cup and invite him to the Agriculture Festival which will be held on October 1st and 2nd; the entity Ilusiones a Caballo, dedicated to equine therapy, gave him a letter of welcome to Soriano and thanked him for his presence; and the Goyaike agricultural platform made up of Del Carmen, Garmet and Frigorífico Nirea San Jacinto presented him with a set of knives and having made with guampa handles.
Before his speech, the ARS presented him with a wooden sign bearing a slogan promoted by the union, “With feet on the ground”which was given to him by two members of the organization’s team of collaborators, specially selected: the oldest and the youngest of all.
The only stand that Lacalle Pou visited was that of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries (MGAP), where he was introduced to the application satellite monitoring system. Then, back in the field, he witnessed a demonstration of that technology. It was seen how a plane towards an application of an agrochemical and before reaching an area with hives the application stopped, resuming after passing through that place where the bees work..
A while before, the president had expressed his satisfaction with the joint ventures that are being carried out between the MGAP and the Ministry of the Environment, something that was also highlighted by the president of the Soriano producers’ union.
john samuel
The gift of the ARS.
Inauguration of the active
After the speeches Lacalle Pou got on a tractor and acted as co-pilot for the operator who was pulling a seeder with his machine which was installing seeds in a sector of the active area in which different technologies are exhibited daily at Expoactiva.
After a couple of passes, he changed teams. Before getting on a corn harvester, a farmer challenged him to drive it. On the way out he did not do it, but for the return leg through the farm he asked the driver for permission and drove her. When he came from afar, it was not noticeable that the team had changed operators; sign that he fulfilled the task in a good way.
Upon reaching the end of the area to be harvested, the president of Rural de Soriano made the last joke of the meeting: he said that after 2025, when his term ends, Lacalle Pou has a guaranteed job.
With both agricultural tasks, as is traditional, within the framework of the Expoactiva, the first threshing of summer crops and the first planting of winter crops were symbolically carried out, this time with the President of the Republic as the protagonist, something that has not been common in recent years.
john samuel
On the tractor with the Argentine seeder.
