I just found out about a site in English that promotes land for sale. After the debacle of 2002, farms (campos) have become a very secure and important field of investment. After the devaluation many people started investing in land and seems that profits are real good since most of the production is sold in USD to locations outside Uruguay, and all labour costs are in Uruguayan pesos.

Investing in land to raise cows or sheep, in my opinion, is a good mid-term investment with good return. Real estate is a long-term investment in Uruguay that requires ongoing mainenance costs until you see the profit.  While start up costs for a ranch may be high, once the initial investment is complete, the ongoing costs and effort of raising the cattle for market are lower.

It requires hiring someone knowledgeable enough of rural areas and the rural activities.  That person will usually deal with your live-in staff at the establishment. A medium size estancia (about 500 hectares equal to 1,234 acres or 5,972,560 square yards) requires two live-in staff on a regular basis.  In addition it will require temporay extra staff for two or three days to do some yerra (a maintain process to take care of animals higene taking place from two to three times a year). The ideal scenario is to have one cow per hectare and one bull every 50 cows.

The price of one acre (equal to 4,840 square yards or 0.405 hectares) can go from USD 650 to USD 1,500 on average, depending on where you buy.