The protein system
Uruguay's protein comes mostly from grass-fed cattle, dairy and grain. On FAO food balance sheet figures, it produces 1.26 times the protein its 3.4 million people eat, and 2.18 times the animal protein.[1]
Beef is the backbone. Exports earned US$2.09 billion in 2024.[3] Dairy is the third-largest export complex after beef and pulp: processors took in 2.212 billion litres of milk in 2025, and about three-quarters of production is exported as powder, cheese or butter.[5] Rice output is about 18 times domestic use, and the 2025 cereal harvest reached 6 million tonnes, 35 per cent above average.[2, 12]
Pork is the main import. Domestic production was 9,916 tonnes in 2024 against imports of 47,171 tonnes, so 83 per cent of pork eaten came from abroad, almost all of it from Brazil.[4]
Durable domestic capacity:
The production base is large for the population it feeds. Beef, dairy, rice, wheat and soy all run well above domestic use, and supply is 104.5 grams of protein per person a day.[1, 2]
Rainfall is the weak point. Almost all cropping is rain-fed, with land equipped for irrigation equal to only 13.9 per cent of cropland.[9] During the historic drought of October 2022 to August 2023, growth slowed to 0.8 per cent.[11] Output in a good year therefore overstates what arrives in a dry one.
Dairy shows both the strength and the concentration of the base. Milk deliveries rose 8.4 per cent in 2025 and set a monthly record of 196 million litres in June 2026, yet the number of dairy farms fell from about 3,900 in 2015/16 to 2,978 in 2023/24.[5] Fewer, larger farms produce more milk, which raises output but leaves more of it in fewer hands. Dairy exports were worth about US$965 million in 2025, and Brazil and Algeria together took more than 60 per cent of them.[5]
Resource headroom:
Uruguay has 0.65 hectares of arable land and 27,190 cubic metres of renewable freshwater per person.[6, 7] The land has been put to work: cropland grew 56 per cent between 2000 and 2024, and 50.5 per cent per person, as soy spread.[9] Lending to agriculture runs at about twice the sector's share of the economy.[10]
Expansion is disciplined. Since 2013, farms over 100 hectares must file soil use plans certified to keep erosion within set limits, and 96 per cent of the land covered, 1.6 million hectares, complies.[14] Forestry competes for land: planted forest grew from about 179,000 hectares in 1990 to 1.15 million in 2024.[9]
Import exposure:
Food made up 14.1 per cent of merchandise imports in 2024.[25] On paper Uruguay imports a lot of protein, because the figures count feed and grain that pass through the country or feed animals for export.[1] The food supply itself depends little on imports.
Pork is the exception. Brazil supplied 96.1 per cent of pork imports in 2024, and imports covered 83 per cent of consumption.[4] That is heavy reliance on one supplier, but Brazil is a neighbour with a large surplus, and the route crosses no chokepoint. If Brazilian supply were cut, beef, which the country produces far beyond its own needs, could take the place of pork on most plates.[1, 2]
Upstream dependence:
Farm inputs are Uruguay's weak point. The country makes no fertiliser, so all its nitrogen, phosphate and potash is imported.[8] It produces no crude oil, and the state company ANCAP imports all the crude refined at La Teja, increasingly from Argentina.[15]
Feed is partly home-grown. Soybean output is about 3.1 million tonnes, but most beans are exported whole, so in the country produced about 120,000 tonnes of soybean meal and imported about 260,000 tonnes.[2, 13] Feed takes about half of domestic protein supply.[1] Maize is the thin link. Maize stocks cover only about 11 days of use, and in drought years maize has to be bought in from neighbours.[2] Uruguay's feed security therefore depends on the harvests of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay as well as its own.
Access and affordability:
About a third of people, 33.2 per cent, in 2024.[16] Uruguay is a high-income country, with a GNI per head of US$24,020, but food is costly and lower incomes are stretched.[27]
On other measures access is strong. is at the reporting floor of 2.5 per cent, and moderate or severe food insecurity is 16.2 per cent.[17, 18] , a broad outcome with many causes beyond diet, was 6.9 per cent in 2018.[19] Inflation peaked at 9.95 per cent in September 2022, when a strong peso softened the rise in world prices, and was 4.65 per cent in 2025.[20, 26, 28] Staple prices have since fallen with large harvests: by December 2025, rice was 42 per cent cheaper than a year earlier, and yellow maize and wheat about 15 per cent cheaper.[12] The affordability gap is about incomes and the price of a varied diet, since the staples themselves are plentiful.
Shock endurance:
Stocks are deep for the grains that matter most for protein. Wheat stocks equal 216 days of domestic use and soybean meal 102 days, while maize is the thin one, at about 11 days.[2] The export surplus adds a second buffer, because beef and milk now sold abroad could be kept at home.
The country has been tested. The economy kept growing through the 2022-23 drought.[11] Reserves cover 8.7 months of imports, and Uruguay is rated BBB+ by S&P and Baa1 by Moody's.[22, 23] In 2020 the state doubled its main food card and family allowances and issued food vouchers, reaching more than 750,000 people, about 22 per cent of the population.[24]
Trajectory
Uruguay's protein system is growing on the back of beef, dairy and grain, with more land under crops and tighter soil rules.[5, 9, 14] Record milk deliveries in mid-2026 and a third consecutive year of well above-average maize plantings point to further growth, and larger maize harvests would cut the feed grain it has to import in dry years.[5, 12] Its exposures are narrow: imported fertiliser and crude, Brazilian pork, and a rain-fed crop base that drought can cut sharply.[4, 8, 11, 15] Wider irrigation and larger maize stocks would do most to steady it.