- The land sales in 2013 is 10% higher than the ones done in 2012
- 1868 sales operations were concluded, which stands for almost 371 thousand hectares of land
General figures
According to the new statistics presented by the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries in Uruguay, the sales operations of agricultural fields in 2013 was 10% higher than the numbers registered for the previous year. In the 1868 sales operations done during the year, there was a total of 371 thousand hectares involved.
Figures by semester
From january to june 2013 there were 888 sales operations. In sum, there were 182 thousand hectares sold, with an average Price of USD 3519 / has. Although the performance was very good the first semester of the year, the second reached even better results. There was even a record: 980 operations were done, involving 188,800 hecatres. The average value by hectare was USD 3574, which is the highest price recorded since the year 2000.
Sales analized by province
Tacuarembó, Rivera and Lavalleja were, in order, the provinces with more sold area. The three of them sum up 124 thousand hectares, which represents 29% of the land sold all year round. Moreover, the province with less sold area was Canelones, where there occured the highest number of operations in the country (195), but for solely 6540 hectares in total in all the year.
The highest average prices were recorded in Soriano, Colonia and San José. The three of them are provinces with an important presence of agricultural and livestock production. The average prices by hectare in those 3 provinces are: USD 6565, USD 6079 and USD 5974, respectively. It’s curious to notice that, meanwhile the average prices here are the highest, these three provinces are placed below the general average regarding the average sold area. This means that less hectares than the other provinces were sold, but for a higher Price. In the other extreme, the lowest average price is observed in Artigas: USD 1624 / hectare.
Sales by hectares of the operations
69% of the operations done correspond to fields between 10 and 100 hectares, although these are only 12% of the total sold area. Apart from that, there were only 19 operations with fields bigger than 2000 hectares (1% of the total), but these constitute 32% of the amount of all the operations.
Analyzing by sales price
The majority of the operations cost USD 3001-4000 / hectare. In this prices range there were 246 operations (13% of the total); 102 thousand hectares were sold (28% of the total), for almost 352 million dollars (USD 3442 average by hectare).
The lowest number of operations were executed for less than USD 500 / hectare. For this price, there were only 100 operations (5% of the total); which correspond to just 6% of the area sold in all the country.
Series “Price of the land”: 2000 – 2013
2013 is the 14th year of the series “Price of the land”, analyzed with the present methodology. In the whole period, there is record of 32,500 operations, in which there were 7, 5 million hectares sold. It is interesting to notice the tendencies and changes throughout the 14 years.
The average price of the 14 analyzed years is USD 1385. The lowest value is recorded in 2002 (USD 385 / hectare). As it has been said, 2013 recorded the highest value by hectare of the whole period (USD 3519 by hectare). The annual average price has risen continuously since 2003. Last year, the land’s price resulted 9 times higher than the one in 2002.
As for the number of sales operations, the highest number was registered in 2007 (3277 operations) and the lowest number in 2000 (1517 operations). The average number of operations between 2004 and 200 was about 3000 per year. The following years (2009 to 2013) there is a low down to 2000 operations per year, in average.
Analyzing the sold area during the period, it can be observed that the highest figure is recorded during the years 2003 to 2008 (the sales in those years were for 760 thousand hectares in total). Since 2009, these numbers drop dramatically, and the average is placed in 350 thousand hectares – which stays considerably stable the last 5 years.
