Uruguayan land dedicated to Barley cultivation increased 20% over the last harvest
Uruguayan cultivators planted 20,000 more hectares of barley this season, a 20% increase over last year, according to sources consulted by El País.
“This brought a change from last harvest where malters, the principal buyers of barley, had to import a large amount of their raw ingredients. This year they were able to fill their demands with local production. To meet that demand, in a year with normal yields (around 3,000 kilos per hectare), there needs to be between 120,000 and 130,000 hectares” said Gonzalo Souto a government analyst. In the last harvest 104,600 hectares were sown with barley.
The fall in international wheat prices led to a significant decline in fields dedicated to its cultivation. This year between 400,000 and 450,000 fields were sown with wheat compared to 593,400 last year. As a result farmers increased the area dedicated to barley said Souto.
The director of the Uruguay Rural Association, Roberto Symonds, agreed with Souto’s estimations, and added “wheat is a significantly less attractive business then last year because of the fall in price”. Further, the majority of barley sowing has not begun yet since it has a later planting date than wheat and the rain along the coast, the region where the majority of wheat is planted, has been too infrequent for wheat cultivation.
What happens with barley, explained El Pais’s sources, is highly dependant on what happens with wheat. Wheat is the principal winter crop, therefore if the profit margin from wheat production is high, like it was last year, producers will dramatically increase production and forgo barley.
During 2011’s harvest the average barley yield was 3,126 kilos per hectare, totalling 326,9000 metric tons.
This Uruguay Business Reports news article is a translation of an article by Pablo Beson that appeared in the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais. The original article, in Spanish, can be found here. Uruguay Business Reports news translation by Donovan Carberry.
Uruguay Business Reports 