Santa Cruz launched the first tests of a pelletizing plant in Gobernador Gregores. The initiative brings together Consejo Agrario Provincial with the local agricultural school and will use oats and alfalfa as raw materials. The goal is to evaluate a feeding alternative for sheep and, at the same time, add value to forage resources produced in the area.
The trial begins with recording the weight of the animals that will receive the pellets. That starting point will allow comparison of their development and observation of the productive response. The experiment should also measure feed behavior, consumption, and costs, because a favorable zootechnical result alone does not ensure that the solution is economically convenient for the producers.
The transformation of oats and alfalfa into pellets facilitates handling, preservation, and ration administration. For a province with large distances and extensive sheep production, having locally processed feed can provide a tool in critical moments. That benefit is a hypothesis of the project and will depend on the data yielded by the trials.
Jorge Poclepovic and Germán Seeber participated in the presentation of the work. The articulation between the productive organization and the school incorporates an educational dimension: students and technicians can observe the process, record information, and link knowledge with a concrete need of livestock farming. The plant thus functions as both a productive team and a space for applied learning.
The addition of local value is another purpose. Instead of moving raw, unprocessed materials or buying all the feed outside the area, the project seeks to take advantage of available forage and generate a product usable by the flocks. Nominal capacity, test volume, investment made, expected price, or number of establishments that could be supplied have not yet been reported.
For now, the news is the start of the trial and not the definitive validation of the plant. Weigh-ins, animal response, and economic analysis will need to determine if the pellets improve production and at what cost. Only with those complete results will it be possible to decide on continuity, scale, and scope for the ovine sector of Santa Cruz.
