Miller Magazine Issue: 131 November 2020

uruguay 80 MILLER / November 2020 First of all, I want to beg the reader for forgiveness. The numerical information presented in this article is not as complete and deep as I would like. There isn’t a stock market in Uruguay, as all companies are private, and so are their records. Decades ago, the government oper- ated in the grain market through the Plan Nacional de Silos, but that was gradually abandoned and it finally was transferred entirely to private companies in 2002, as part of an austerity program. The records kept by the MGAP (Secretary of Agriculture) are, to be polite, very basic. I contacted some officials regarding this article, but none of the replied. The USDA, which has a regional office in Buenos Aires, has more complete information, but still lacks a lot. I have done my best to present useful and truthful information, but some errors might have escaped me. INTRODUCTION The population is 3,5 millions. The total GDP is USD 62,917 billion, which means USD 17.819 per capita. Territory is 176.215 km 2 . Its continental shelf is 206.000 km 2 . Natural disasters are uncommon. Mostly there are floods in areas that shouldn’t be populated. Weather is temperate, but be prepared for a winter that is wet and cold. This is not a country with palm trees, sun and dai- kiris. Cost of life is about 63% higher in Montevideo (the capital and largest city of Uruguay) than in Istanbul. Sal- aries are a little lower. Uruguayans love to think of themselves as a tiny coun- try, locked between two giants. However, its territory is only 4,3 times smaller than Turkey. And that doesn't take into account its sea, roughly the same size as the land mass. But the historic influence of Argentina and Bra- zil, with their economic and military powers, has been enough to instill a view of Uruguay as small and locked, as a Switzerland of the south, when (in fact) it is about 4 times the size of Switzerland and has a rich sea. This complex also comes from the fact that our country was a result of the machinations of the British diplomacy. To achieve peace in South America, and also count on a friendly sea port on the Atlantic Coast of the conti- nent, they made Argentina and Brazil sign a peace treaty that left this area to itself, instead of joining Argenti- na as another province. The elite of Buenos Aires, who drained the provinces through the tariffs and expenses of the only port in the country, where more than happy to let the other sea port of the area out of the Federation. While, for Brazil, the conquest of Uruguay was just a matter of strategy to hold off (maybe eventually con- quer) Argentina. The XIX century was wasted in civil wars between the Partido Colorado (Red Party) and the Partido Nacional (White Party), two of the oldest po- litical parties in the whole world. At the start of the XX century, the death of Aparicio Sar- avia, the last caudillo (chieftain) of the Parti- do Nacional marked the end of the civil wars. At the same time, the president Jose Batlle y Ordoñez, of the Partido Colorado, started a series of legal and economic reforms to mod- ernize the country. Turkish readers may find a strong similarity between him and Musta- fa Kemal Ataturk. Under his rule, the country pacified and flourished, becoming a preferred destination for thousands of European mi- grants. However, under the rule of his son (Luis Batlle, also elected through democratic vote) the country embarked in a series of na- tionalizations and protectionism of the local industry that proved disastrous in the long term. This caused a slow boiling economic crisis and unrest that exploded in the 60s with attacks from Marxist guerrilla groups. As a result, in the 70s the Armed Forces over- threw the government. This situation lasted until 1985, when democratic rule returned to the country. In 2000, Jorge Batlle, grandson of Jose Batlle, won the Presidency. His government was complicated by the ef- fects of several external crisis (including the default in Argentina) and an epidemy of “foot and mouth disease” that destroyed the beef market. Still, he managed to end his term peacefully and conducted a series of reforms to free the markets. In 2005, a leftist coalition called Frente Amplio won the power and held it 15 years, through 3 terms. Although these years were plagued by denounc- es of corruption, the international boom of commodities and the construction of two large wood pulp factories gave the country positive numbers, but the economic sit- uation started to fail around 2017,without showing any signs of recovery. Finally, in 2020, a President of the Partido Nacional, Luis Lacalle Pou (who also comes from a lineage of pres- The productıon of graıns ıs as follows: Grain Expected Production (thousands of tons) - 2020/21 Rice 2.200 Soybeans 840 Wheat 760 Corn 840 Barley 610 Sorghum 100 Source: USDA Grain & Feed Annual, Uruguay