Farm land sales in Uruguay totaled a record 1.3bn dollars in 2013, involving 1.868 operations and 370.927 hectares, which is 10% more than in 2012, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food ministry’s Stats Office, DIEA. Uruguay’s farmland covers approximately 17 million hectares and the most dynamic buyers are the pensions funds, says the report.

Uruguay average hectare price was also record last year

According to DIEA the average hectare price was also record last year: 3.519 dollars compares to 3.473 dollars the previous year. The 1.3bn dollars, and number of operations of last year, finished with the 2008 record of 1.26bn dollars and represented far less operations compared to the 2.959 of 2008 and also involved half the hectares of 2012, 684.000.

Read More

Uruguay sends bill to parliament banning ownership of land by foreign companies or governments

The Uruguayan government sent a draft law to parliament Tuesday that would ban the ownership of land by companies if they are in any way linked to foreign countries. The measure states it “aims to avoid the risk of foreign states breaching the sovereignty of the Uruguayan state in the absence of appropriate regulations and occupying a significant position in agricultural activity.”

The country’s presidency, which announced the proposal, argued that land is a scarce and nonrenewable resource in Uruguay as it highlighted the economic importance of the agricultural sector.

According to the measure, ”some states participate (in land purchases) through companies and investment funds for agricultural production in order to provide food security to the populations of their countries.“

The proposed law seeks to have a ”deterrent effect” and cites legislation in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Argentina as precedents.

According to stats from Uruguay’s Ministry of Agriculture in the last twelve years the average price of a hectare of land has increased nine-fold from 385 dollars in 2002 to 3.472 dollars currently. In the last thirteen years 7.1 million hectares (out of a total of 16 million approx) have changed hands with a turnover of over 9 billion dollars.

http://en.mercopress.com/2013/11/13/uruguay-sends-bill-to-parliament-banning-ownership-of-land-by-foreign-companies-or-governments