250 Uruguayan shearers start the campaign in Coreses (Zamora)
The 250 Uruguayan shearers who have circumvented the coronavirus and arrived this past Wednesday in Spain, to meet the demand for specialized labor in the country, have started this campaign this Friday in Zamora, the Spanish province with the highest milk sheep census.
This Castilian-Leonese province lists some 550,000 milking sheep, which, added to those of meat, can suppose between 600,000 and 700,000 heads of sheep to which they will have to remove the wool in the coming weeks, the head of COAG explained to Efe on Friday. Zamora, Lorenzo Rivera.
The works have begun in the town of Coreses, ten kilometers from the capital of Zamora, where a crew has demonstrated its ability with the machine by peeling about 180 sheep a day each of its members, which brings them benefits that are around euro for each head worked.
These shearers have been hired by the most important company in the sector of Castilla y León, Esquiladores Montaña de León, with eighteen years of office and whose manager, Ignacio Fidalgo, has explained that the campaign starts this season with 150,000 sheep late.
The delay in the arrival of Uruguayan shearers has been due to the difficulties of bureaucratic processing due to the closure of borders imposed by the health crisis of COVID-19.
Fidalgo, who has employed 39 of the 250 temporary workers from Latin America and has fourteen other specialists hired previously, has indicated that this year's campaign will last until July 20, later than usual because of the coronavirus.
This businessman explained that the lack of Spanish labor is due to the fact that "nobody wants to do it" because it is hard work that requires practice and skill, so the problem that has arisen this spring due to the closure of borders could be repeated. in late summer, when the second shearing of the year is performed.
He has also complained that the eight large Spanish companies that have chartered the plane for the arrival of the shearers from Uruguay have had to pay 2,115 euros for each worker's ticket, when afterwards the aircraft has also been used to bring returnees who have only paid 400 euros for the trip.
During the next two months, shearers will travel from town to town, from livestock to livestock, to leave the sheep fresh for the summer, a traditional task that is maintained not by the price of wool, which is symbolic and hardly reports income. to the ranchers, but for sanitation reasons.
