V) MESOPOTAMIA

6,000 ha. for sale at U$S 1,500/ha. Total: U$S 9,000,000.

This zone covers an area of 167,000 km2 with a population of 2,033,000 inhabitants, and includes the Provinces of Misiones, Corrientes and North of Entre Rios. It is mostly open rolling land as far as Entre Rios and Corrientes is concerned, with an excellent well spread out yearly rainfall of 48 to 58 inches.

Traditional in cattle breeding, and the most important zone of the country in orange production and rice growing, now also becoming important in timber production with local and overseas timber companies investing in and eucalyptus plantations.

The detail per Province is the following:
Misiones: Has an area of 29.800 km2 with a population of 789,000 inhabitants. The land is rolling with red soil. The climate is semi-tropical with a very high yearly rainfall of 80 - 100 inches. All the area is covered by natural forest, which has been very much exploited, with new pine plantations taking their place. Because of the humidity and heat, the pine growth to cutting size is reached in 10 years, compared to Europe where they take 50 years to reach the same size. The capital city in the South is Posadas with a population of 219,000. The main tourist attraction are the Iguazú Falls in the North East, one of the most impressive of the whole world. The main production is timber with many sawmills installed and yerba mate (Paraguayan tea).

Corrientes: 89,200 km2 with a population of 781,000 inhabitants. The Capital city is in the North West up against the River Parana also called Corrientes, that has a population of 268,000 inhabitants. This Province is totally different to Misiones, with warm climate, but not semi-tropical, with about 20 frosts in the winter.

The annual rainfall is of 60 inches in the North dropping to 48 inches in the South. It is mostly rolling grassland, with a huge swamp in the middle of about 500,000 hectares, which is famous for its rich fauna reserve of many different wild animals, birds and fishes. This Province has a tradition in cattle breeding, with good quality crossbred cattle, stating off by Herefords at the beggining of last century, since crossed with Cebu, and today their are many ranches with good quality Braford herds.
In the North East 100% of the country's tea is produced. Rice is grown as well, tabbacco, strawberries, and citrus plantations. A lot of cattle land has been put down to forestation of pines and eucalyptus. Shell invested in 1998 buying a cattle ranch in the North West of 9,000 hectares called "Garruchos" which had 50% of the surface down to pines, with the intention of putting the remaining 50% of the land also down to pines. They paid $ 3000/ha., total $ 27,000,000 USD.

Sunset in Corrientes over the swamps of Ibera, some 500.000 hectares full of fauna

Entre Rios: North of Entre Rios is in this zone, with an area of 48,000 km2 which is populated by 463,000 inhabitants, including the capital city by the name of Parana which has a population of 276,000 in habitants. This is all gentle rolling land, mostly open, with some wooded areas in the North which are covered with a carpet of fine grass underneath the trees, making it look very much like a park, that one can enjoy driving round as the trees are fairly open looking at the sheep, cattle, ostridges, deer and other wild fauna. The main production is cattle, rice and has the most important orange production of the country, with all the orchids towards the East, and North of a city called Concordia. The photo below is this area, has very good homestead and full working installations. Although it rains 45 inches per year, they do corn with irrigation.
Province of Corrientes in winter after the first frosts the natural grass dries off, but then comes back green three months later. The winters are very short.

In this zone the land is today worth (2008) between 500 USD upto $ 5,000 USD per hectare.