I spent all of today traveling though the centre of Uruguay directly north of Montevideo to Durazno and then across to Mercedes. This area is traditionally grazing but is being pushed into by large companies looking for more ground to crop. Seen as poorer soils to those on the western half of Uruguay farmer in this area have never tried growing crops. So some large companies from Argentina are coming in and share cropping and purchasing land. The country is much like what we farm in Australia and the crops grow well.
The hole in the system seem to be the amount of Soy beans grown. It's 70% of the crop every year and thus not a lot of rotation between crops and soy leaves very little ground cover and the soils are prone to wash away even under no till. The Uruguayan government has now stepped in and asking for agronomic plans prior to planting and in time may insist on three years of pasture and only two crops on the more fragile soils.
No comments:
Post a Comment