Intensification, diversification, and specialization to improve the competitiveness of sheep production systems under pastoral conditions: Uruguay's case

Abstract

In the last two decades, major changes in the international market for wool and sheep meat have been observed, resulting from changes in meat and textile consumption patterns. These changes have influenced the way that sheep and sheep products are produced, industrialized and commercialized, particularly in those countries that historically exported the majority of their production to the international market. Improvement in productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness of alternative industries (e.g., synthetic fabrics, cotton, pork, and poultry), business scale, international trade agreements, negative international policies for the wool industry (e.g., regulations on Australia s wool stock), changes caused by the application of new quality assurance guidelines, product and process certification, branding and promotion, environmental protection policies, animal health and welfare regulations, product issues (e.g., food safety and security, consistency, supply, and culinary attributes), modern dressing styles (e.g., weight, strength, versatility, natural product, softness, appearance, comfort, easy care, all-season, and fashion), availability of skilled labor, and social responsibility for all members of the industry are all factors that have influenced the wool and sheep meat industry. Despite the overall growth seen in the world population and improved purchasing power in many regions, the aforementioned trends and other related factors have resulted in: a) global wool consumption remaining generally stable between 1.5 to 2.0 million tons/year, while cotton and synthetic fabric consumption continue to rise, recently reaching 22.8 and 42.0 million tons, respectively; and b) the global sheep and goat meat consumption growing less than poultry and pork meat consumption. Wool market studies have shown that general trends favor the production of finer wools (Montossi et al., 2011b). In the case of sheep meat, future world production will be less than that required by the market, which will result in strong demand and firm prices (OECD-FAO, 2012). Using positive scenarios for world economic growth, without major crises, highvalue markets will be favorable for sheep meat consumption (particularly for lamb meat) and for fine and superfine wools. Associated with these market trends, significant reductions have been observed in sheep populations in the major global sheep meat and woolproducing areas (Table 1). These reductions range between 34.3 and 56.0%, being lower for Uruguay compared with Australia and New Zealand. Forecasted projections (next five years) estimate that sheep stocks Implications