Pan de AzĂșcar, Uruguay,
Among a motley collection of rescued farm animals, four horses graze peacefully on a farm outside the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, blissfully unaware they had narrowly escaped the chopping block.
Uruguay, a country where horses are not con-sidered food but companions, has seen a rise in equine meat exports, prompting efforts to rescue horses destined for slaughter.
In 2020, the small South American nation was the seventh-largest exporter of horse meat, according to the OEC economic data site, with Belgium, Russia, France and Japan among the top importers.
Most of Uruguayâs tens of thousands of race, sports and work horses end up on someoneâs plate somewhere else in the world after they become in-jured, old, or their owners simply cannot care for them anymore.
Uruguayan horses are not bred for meat, but used in racing or dressage and on farms — often by cattle-breeding gauchos who prefer to travel the grassy plains on horseback rather than by car.
In Pan de Azucar, some 115 kilometers (71 miles) east of Montevideo, horses destined for slaughter are finding a second chance on the farm of Juan Pablo Pio.
For now, he is playing host to four horses that were bought by the NGO Santuarios Primitivo, who took the animals from a truck headed for one of Uruguayâs three equine slaughterhouses and brought them to his farm.
âThey have come to live what is left of their lives here,â said Pio, who described his mission as âdoing things because they are right and not because they are profitable.â
âTheir only mission… is to exist,â he added of the four-footed newcomers.
Pio also has a rescued chicken, a donkey, a pig and a cow.
111- Fattened up –
Santuarios Primitivo was created three years ago by Pablo Amorin y Martin Erro, friends with ties to the equestrian world.
Since then, they have saved some 250 horses and found new homes for them on dozens of farms across the small South American nation.
Amorin told AFP that his team contacts herds-men who gather unwanted horses from around Uru-guay to be fattened up and sold for slaughter.
âWe tried to go to the slaughterhouses, but they wouldnât open their doors for us to buy (horses) from them,â he said. âSo, we turned our attention to… the âtropilleros.â When we have money or space to buy and adopt horses, we talk to the herdsmen and tell them: âWhen the next shipment comes in, we want five horses for ourselvesâ.â
Many of the herdsmen are happy to help, said Amorin, and sometimes even ask the rescuers to take a particular horse that they had grown fond of from among the condemned.
1111- âNoble animalâ –
Uruguay is a cattle country: beef is its main export commodity and there are more than three cows for each of the countryâs 3.5 million inhabitants — the highest number per capita in the world.
As for horses, there is one for every seven in-habitants, according to the Uruguayan Equine Vet-erinary Association — about half a million.
In 2021, the country slaughtered 58,152 horses, according to Uruguayâs INAC national meat institute — up 61 percent from 2020 and the highest number by far in a decade.
Uruguayâs horse meat export volume rose percent in 2021, valued at some $28.8 million, said the INAC. In 2022, exports rose further still.
Beef is cheap in Uruguay, and for an Uruguayan to eat horse meat would be sacrilege. But the fact that their horses are being eaten abroad is an uncomfort-able open secret.
âThe horse carries symbolic value in our culture,â anthropologist Gustavo Laborde told AFP. In Uruguay, it is said that âthe country was made on horseback,â he added.âAPP