The European Union renews its support for sustainable livestock farming in Uruguay

The European Union is renewing its support for sustainable livestock farming in Uruguay with a technical cooperation project financed mainly by the European Union through the Euroclima Program. 

Over the past four years, the Sustainable Family Livestock Project has invested considerable effort and resources in promoting good production practices among Uruguayan livestock farming families. The initiative has also benefited from contributions from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the National Meat Institute of Uruguay (INAC), as well as counterpart contributions from the National Commission for Rural Development (CNFR) and the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INIA), the entities implementing the project.  

Both investments take place within the framework of Euroclima, the European Union’s flagship program for climate cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, and share the ultimate goal of helping Uruguay maintain and improve its position in the highly competitive global livestock market as an environmentally sustainable meat producer.  

Specifically, the objective of the Sustainable Livestock in Uruguay project is to strengthen the sustainability of livestock systems in Uruguay, ensuring their resilience to the impacts of climate change and variability. The project will contribute to national capacities for the design, management and monitoring of public policies for the sustainability of livestock farming. With a gender and intergenerational approach, it will serve to strengthen the role of women and young people in livestock farming.  

This cooperation action between Uruguay and the European Union seeks, among other things, to support the design of public policies that, among other inputs, take into account the results and lessons learned from the Resilient Family Livestock project, especially in the areas of designing indicators and monitoring the social, environmental and economic sustainability of livestock farming and strengthening the institutional framework of producers’ organizations.  

The project was presented in Montevideo, in an event attended by the Ambassador of the European Union in Uruguay, Paolo Berizzi; the Undersecretary of Environment, Gerardo Amarilla; the Undersecretary of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, Ignacio Buffa; the Executive Director of the Uruguayan Agenda for International Cooperation (AUCI), Mariano Berro; the President of the National Commission for Rural Development (CNFR), Fernando López; and Almudena Barrio, Coordinator of the Euroclima Program at the Ibero-American and International Foundation for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAPP, a Spanish Cooperation entity designated by the Euroclima Program to implement the Uruguay Sustainable Livestock Project).  

The Ambassador of the European Union in Uruguay, Paolo Berizzi, said during the event: “Europe is very aware of the economic importance of the livestock sector in Uruguay and we are fully committed to the objective of making this activity more resilient and environmentally, economically and socially sustainable in the long term, so that it can continue to contribute to the welfare and prosperity of livestock farming families, first and foremost, and of the country as a whole”.