Optimism in the recovery of the Uruguayan fruit production

Unlike areas of agriculture such as soy, wheat or corn, whose unit sales values have been multiplied by 7 or 8 internationally, fruit Uruguayan exports have remained at standardized values. To further complicate things, the dollar is very depressed in Uruguay (a situation that has been changing recently) and producers must pay the costs in Uruguayan pesos.

According to John Paul Furest, field consultant with over 20 years of experience and director of Furest Agro Solutions, the dollar's value fell by 30-35% and the costs in Uruguayan pesos rose nearly 40% in a 6 to 7 years period, which, along with other factors, has led producers to quit products, something that is much more visible in fruits. In terms of blueberries, for example, in 2007 Uruguay had about 1,000 acres, nowadays there are only 450-480.

There is optimism for the blueberries, according to Juan Pablo, in the Southern Cone (Argentina and Uruguay), there have been two opposing situations. There have been several varietal changes in Argentina over the last nine years that, from the varietal point of view is good but, as we should expect at least 4-5 harvests to obtain acceptable yields, they are taking their time to come into production. On the other hand, in Uruguay, we are now starting varietal changes. Thus, despite having fewer hectares, production will continue to increase throughout the harvest. At this point, we are ahead about 8 to 10 days in and we hope the cold doesn't harm us as much as it did in Argentina recently.