Investing in Agricultural Land in Uruguay (lifted verbatim from the ola uruguay newsletter )
What if you could combine a home on a peaceful rural estate near the ocean, the beach, and a cosmopolitan city, with a profitable agricultural investment? Well, an investment in Uruguay’s booming agricultural industry could give you just that.
Uruguay has over one million hectares under cultivation, but it has been estimated that over three million hectares are suitable for cultivation. This represents a great opportunity. The recent soya boom contributed strongly to the conversion of grassland to intensive agricultural land. Hectares planted with soya tripled from 400,000 in 2001 to over 1,200,000 for the 2008/2009 growing season. In this time, Argentine farmers leased and purchased large acreages especially in the west.
In fact, buyers from all around the world have discovered the value of Uruguay agricultural land. Although prices have risen substantially since 2000, buyers from Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Asia still find good value here, and it is estimated that foreign buyers now own a third of all Uruguayan agricultural lands.
A number of factors converge to create this positive investment climate
1. Few natural disasters
Natural disasters are almost unheard of in Uruguay.
2. Level terrain
The west is largely an extension of the flat Argentine pampas. The southeast has gently undulating hills and alluvial plains with coastal lagoons and wetlands.
The north grades into the low hills and valleys of southern Brazil.
3. Excellent soils
Soils, in general, are well developed and productive, similar to the soils of some of the other “breadbaskets” of the world, such as Ukraine, eastern China, the North American Prairie, and La Pampas Húmeda of Argentina.
4. A long growing season
I know a number of people who farm all summer in the Northern hemisphere, then do it again in the Southern hemisphere. Fresh summer produce comes ripe in Uruguay in the middle of the northern hemisphere’s winter. Remember the bulk of the world’s population lives in the Northern hemisphere.
In other words, you live one continuous spring/summer/spring/summer, where you can continually “make hay while the sun shines”. They seem to be doing alright, and don’t appear to be aging more rapidly than normal, but this angle probably isn’t for everybody.
5. Proximity to a major sea-port, its associated free trade zone, and from there, the world market.
6. A temperate climate with abundant rainfall
The climate is temperate subtropical, with distinct seasons, warm summers, cool winters, and rainfall evenly distributed through the year.
Winter has occasional frosts but snow is rare. Relative humidity is fairly evenly high at around 75%. Rainfall is ample throughout Uruguay and distributed fairly evenly across the terrain averaging 1,000 mm in the south to 1,400 mm in the North.
There are no deserts in Uruguay, nor arid or semi-arid regions.
Uruguay Agricultural Land
Investing in Agricultural Land in Uruguay (lifted verbatim from the ola uruguay newsletter )
What if you could combine a home on a peaceful rural estate near the ocean, the beach, and a cosmopolitan city, with a profitable agricultural investment? Well, an investment in Uruguay’s booming agricultural industry could give you just that.
Uruguay has over one million hectares under cultivation, but it has been estimated that over three million hectares are suitable for cultivation. This represents a great opportunity. The recent soya boom contributed strongly to the conversion of grassland to intensive agricultural land. Hectares planted with soya tripled from 400,000 in 2001 to over 1,200,000 for the 2008/2009 growing season. In this time, Argentine farmers leased and purchased large acreages especially in the west.
In fact, buyers from all around the world have discovered the value of Uruguay agricultural land. Although prices have risen substantially since 2000, buyers from Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Asia still find good value here, and it is estimated that foreign buyers now own a third of all Uruguayan agricultural lands.
A number of factors converge to create this positive investment climate
1. Few natural disasters
Natural disasters are almost unheard of in Uruguay.
2. Level terrain
The west is largely an extension of the flat Argentine pampas. The southeast has gently undulating hills and alluvial plains with coastal lagoons and wetlands.
The north grades into the low hills and valleys of southern Brazil.
3. Excellent soils
Soils, in general, are well developed and productive, similar to the soils of some of the other “breadbaskets” of the world, such as Ukraine, eastern China, the North American Prairie, and La Pampas Húmeda of Argentina.
4. A long growing season
I know a number of people who farm all summer in the Northern hemisphere, then do it again in the Southern hemisphere. Fresh summer produce comes ripe in Uruguay in the middle of the northern hemisphere’s winter. Remember the bulk of the world’s population lives in the Northern hemisphere.
In other words, you live one continuous spring/summer/spring/summer, where you can continually “make hay while the sun shines”. They seem to be doing alright, and don’t appear to be aging more rapidly than normal, but this angle probably isn’t for everybody.
5. Proximity to a major sea-port, its associated free trade zone, and from there, the world market.
6. A temperate climate with abundant rainfall
The climate is temperate subtropical, with distinct seasons, warm summers, cool winters, and rainfall evenly distributed through the year.
Winter has occasional frosts but snow is rare. Relative humidity is fairly evenly high at around 75%. Rainfall is ample throughout Uruguay and distributed fairly evenly across the terrain averaging 1,000 mm in the south to 1,400 mm in the North.
There are no deserts in Uruguay, nor arid or semi-arid regions.