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Uruguay Land Use and Tenure
The general characteristics of Uruguay's land area
helped
determine the pattern of land use. The countryside is
devoid of
mountains--in contrast to most other Latin American
nations--and
is only 2 to 3 percent forested. Over 80 percent of the
land can
be used for some kind of agriculture. The natural
grasslands for
which Uruguay is famous lend themselves to the predominant
agricultural activity: livestock production.
Although the land and temperate climate facilitated
livestock
production, the limited fertility of the soil hindered the
production of crops. Livestock ranches covered
three-quarters of
the total land, especially in the departments of Artigas,
Cerro
Largo, Durazno, Flores, Lavalleja, Maldonado, Paysandú,
Rivera,
Rocha, Salto, and Tacuarembó
(see
fig. 1). The most
productive
wheat- and cereal-farming area was the southwest (Colonia,
Río
Negro, and Soriano departments); most of the rice was
produced in
the east (Treinta y Tres Department); and fruits,
vegetables, and
wine were produced in the departments of Canelones,
Florida, and
San José.
Uruguay was no exception to the Latin American pattern
of
concentrated landownership, but its small population had
kept
land distribution from becoming a major political issue.
Agricultural enterprises could be roughly divided into two
types,
whose characteristics in the mid-1980s reflected the
concentration of landownership and helped explain
Uruguay's urban
tendencies. The first type, family-operated (owned or
rented)
farms and ranches, made up 85 percent of agricultural
enterprises
in the country, employed 68 percent of rural workers, and
produced 45 percent of all agricultural output. But this
type of
enterprise controlled only 25 percent of agricultural land
(farming and livestock). The second type, larger
commercial
enterprises, controlled 75 percent of the land, employed
32
percent of rural labor, and produced 55 percent of output.
These
statistics indicate that smaller enterprises made more
productive
use of the land. However, the fact that such
family-operated
farms and ranches employed mostly family members rather
than
salaried workers tended to limit the development of the
rural
economy. The larger enterprises, by contrast, were mostly
extensive livestock ranches that had little need of hired
labor.
As this second type of enterprise became more prevalent
throughout the twentieth century, landownership became
more
concentrated, and the population of the countryside
declined.
Agricultural production employed only about 15 percent
of
Uruguay's labor force in the late 1980s. The agricultural
work
force declined steadily as the number of small
agricultural
enterprises diminished. There were 87,000 farms and
ranches in
1961, 77,000 in 1970, and only 57,000 in 1986. The
importance of
family-operated establishments is clearly seen in rural
labor
statistics. In 1980 two-thirds of the 160,000-person
agricultural
labor force was made up of landowners or their relatives;
only
57,000 workers were wage earners. Not surprisingly, the
labor
movement had little impact on rural workers, although both
the
rice workers and the dairy workers were organized into
unions.
Data as of December 1990
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