URUGUAY

Location

Uruguay is located to the southeast of South America. The country shares its borders with Brazil to the northeast; the South Atlantic Ocean to the south and east; and Argentina to its west. Uruguay has a total land area of 176,215 sq km. Climate is considered to be generally warm and temperate.

Agricultural sector

Uruguay's main agricultural products are indigenous cattle meat, whole fresh cow milk, paddy rice, wheat, soybeans, grapes, greasy wool, indigenous chicken meat, indigenous sheep meat, sunflower seed.

Brief overview of organic farming

There are 759,000 hectares of organic land in Uruguay and approximately 500 organic farms operating in the country. Organic land makes up 5.1% of the country's arable land. Meat, honey and vegetable are most produced on Uruguay's organic farms. The country's domestic market remains small; organic products are sold via home delivery, farmers markets, on-farms sales and supermarkets.


Brief overview of key organic products

Organic exports include meat, wines, honey, rice, milk and citrus fruits.

The network

Associación de Productores Orgánicos del Uruguay (APODU) is a small organic producers association in Uruguay.

References

- CIA FactBook, 31.05.07 - https://www.cia.gov.

- FAO, 24.10.2006: Key Statistics of Food and Agriculture External Trade. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division - http://www.fao.org/es/ess/top/country.html?lang=en 

- Yussefi, Minou and Willer, Helga, Eds.: The World of Organic Agriculture: Statistics and emerging trends