Advanced farming techniques: Uruguay paving way for ‘smart’ agriculture

Country hopes to feed 50 million people in future

MONTEVIDEO: Uruguay, a country of 3.3 million inhabitants and four times as many cows, hopes to feed 50 million people thanks to drones, “smart” combines and other high-tech farming techniques.

At a farm a two-hour drive outside the capital Montevideo, combines on auto pilot meticulously harvest every millimetre of field.

The farmer inside the machine, instead of driving, follows its progress on a screen as it collects data on crop yields per square meter that he will analyse to improve next year’s harvest.

“For us, harvesting information is as important as harvesting grain,” said farmer Gabriel Carballal.

Carballal, 40, began working on his family farm in 1999, originally using traditional methods.

But then came a “revolution” in planting technologies, machinery and crop management techniques, he said.

That revolution has nearly doubled his yields in the course of a decade, thanks to genetically modified seeds, high-tech machines and “direct sowing” – a technique that involves planting seeds directly into last year’s fields, with minimal tilling, to protect the soil.

At the same time Uruguay, where the agriculture industry was traditionally geared toward cattle ranching, nearly tripled its crop land to 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres).

The small country, an agricultural dynamo with a temperate climate that is sandwiched between South American giants Argentina and Brazil, leads the world in arable land per person, with 15 million hectares.

It is also likely the only country with four cows per person, each of them equipped with an electronic ear chip to trace every cut of beef in this nation of steak lovers.

By betting on technology and boosting productivity, Uruguay has already gone from producing enough food for nine million people in 2005 to enough for 28 million people today.

The government has set a target of eventually feeding 50 million people, 15 times the population.

Behind this “agro-intelligent Uruguay,” as the government puts it, are decades of joint research by the state and private farmers and ranchers, said Agriculture Minister Tabare Aguerre.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 26^th,  2014.

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