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Results Briefs April 22, 2022

Promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture and Natural Resource Management in Uruguay

Richard Irureta (left) stands next to the DACC-financed waste management pool (pileta) he uses to capture manure from his dai

Richard Irureta (left) stands next to the DACC-financed waste management pool (pileta) he uses to capture manure from his dairy operation. The waste management pool reduces eutrophication-causing dairy effluents flowing into the Santa Lucia watershed, while at the same time providing needed fertilizer for his farm.

World Bank

The World Bank-financed Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and Climate Change project (DACC) helped 5,139 farmers, 22 percent of whom were women, to adopt climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate-smart livestock practices to enhance climate change resilience in the agricultural sector in Uruguay. The project created the National System for Agriculture Information (SNIA), a digital agriculture system consisting of 34 separate and interoperable digital products (such as a novel traceability system for the application of pesticides and a meteorological early warning system for farmers). The SNIA promotes climate change resilience in farming, product traceability, and natural resource management. These digital tools helped bring over 2.7 million hectares (ha) of land under sustainable landscape management practices.

Beneficiary Story/Quote

Waste Management for Clean Water and Organic fertilizer in the Santa Lucia watershed.

For Richard Irureta, who farms in the Santa Lucia watershed and has used the waste management pool for four years, the quality and timing of manure application is an improvement over previous “one-off” chemical use. 

Richard applies organic fertilizer from the waste management pool to his fields, one hectare at a time, every 15 days: “The soil stays strong all year. The dry organic matter is particularly useful to improve the soil before planting sorghum,” he says. Additional benefits of the systems are seen at the regional level – collectively, these waste management pools reduce harmful effluent runoff into the Santa Lucia watershed, ensuring clean and safe water for those who rely on it.

 

Challenge

Uruguay is highly vulnerable to climate change. Weather-related shocks, increasing both in frequency and intensity due to climate change, posed a growing threat to the Uruguayan economy. In addition, the country faced growing pressures from anthropogenic activities, including soil degradation and water pollution. In the Santa Lucia watershed, dairy farms contributed 80 percent of water pollution in the most important watershed in the country, which supplies approximately 70 percent of the capital city of Montevideo’s fresh water. At the same time, Uruguay’s agricultural sector was critical to the Uruguayan economy, contributing 7 percent of GDP and 71 percent of total exports.  

Approach

DACC launched in 2011 and sought to promote farmer adoption of climate-smart agricultural and livestock practices and improved natural resource management practices nationwide, through technical assistance and subproject financing. DACC financed matching grants to dairy producers for the installation of effluent management systems on dairy farms in the Santa Lucia watershed. DACC invested in information systems to improve public and private decision-making in the agricultural sector, on-farm assets to demonstrate sustainable intensification and scale up its use, and knowledge transfer to improve agricultural practices across the country.  

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DACC helped 5,139 farmers, 22 percent of whom were women

Results

DACC supported Uruguay’s economy by protecting the environment, addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture, and by strengthening the cultivating practices of small family-owned farming businesses.

Between 2011 and 2021, the following key results were achieved:

  • DACC helped 5,139 farmers, 22 percent of whom were women, to adopt climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate-smart livestock practices.
  • 155,000 users accessed the National System for Agriculture Information (SNIA) to leverage its data toward more sustainable land and natural resource use.
  • The project carried out mapping, at 1:40,000 scale of 85 percent of Uruguay’s arable land, which today facilitates more detailed and localized soil and land use planning.
  • To build resilience to climate change, the project brought 2.6 million hectares under sustainable natural resource management techniques. By 2021, 96 percent of arable land was covered by effective implementation of Soil Use and Management Plans. Similarly, by 2021, 73 percent of national dairy production was carried out under Sustainable Dairy Plans. Moreover, 70 percent of the Soil Use and Management Plans and 100 percent of Sustainable Dairy Plans in Santa Lucía Watershed verified implementation through audits.

Bank Group Contribution

The World Bank, through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), provided an initial loan in the amount of $49 million and an additional loan in the amount of $15 million to finance the project.

Partners

Looking Ahead

The Uruguay Agro-ecological and Climate Resilient Systems Project, approved in late 2021, will scale up activities started under the DACC project. It will focus on improving information systems to improve traceability of natural resource management use and translate this into agroecological production on-farm. It will leverage the traceability of production to enable producers in Uruguay to market agroecological products for high value, differentiated markets. For example, the project will continue DACC’s activity in the Santa Lucia watershed to equip dairy farmers with effluent management technologies to achieve on-farm circular economy through nutrient cycling. The new operation will scale up the management and monitoring of the agricultural chemical (DMA) tool, which was piloted under the DACC project.

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