Sheep shearers back in business

– Wearing a mask and a vest-top, Helder Canto grips the sheep firmly as he begins to shear off its heavy coat, his expertise bringing him on a more than 10 000km journey from Uruguay to the rural heartlands of northwestern Spain.

It’s a annual trip, but this year, things have been upended by the global pandemic, with Canto and about 250 other Uruguayan sheep shearers arriving six weeks later than normal given the difficulties of travelling in a world under lockdown.

Their charter flight landed in Madrid on Wednesday with the team set to work flat out at dozens of farms in Spain until July.

“There aren’t enough sheep shearers in Spain and it’s not like going to pick fruit. If you don’t know how to shear, it’s not something you can learn in two months,” says Jose Moran, who owns the shearing firm where Helder works every year.

“If they didn’t come from Uruguay, we’d lose everything.”

They got down to work on the very first day, shearing about 1 300 sheep and another 750 on Friday at a farm in Villabraz, a village of barely 100 residents.

“We have 60 000 sheep that need to be sheared by July 20,” said the 38-year-old who comes from Baltasar Brum in northern Uruguay, where there is a monument to the town’s shearers.

In Spain, where freedom of movement has been dramatically curbed to slow the spread of a virus that has now killed more than 27 000 people, Helder’s crew are staying together and avoid going out as much as possible.

The global pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions have thrown up a host of complications for seasonal workers and for the farmers and livestock breeders who rely on them. – AFP