# Glossary: DICOSE and the cube

**The words you need to read Uruguay's livestock declarations, and how cow-tools models them.**

## The institutions

- **MGAP**: Ministerio de Ganadería, Agricultura y Pesca, Uruguay's ministry of livestock, agriculture and fisheries.
- **DICOSE**: División de Contralor de Semovientes, the MGAP division that registers every livestock holder. Each year every holder files a **declaración jurada** (sworn declaration) of the animals on the holding on 30 June.
- **SNIG**: Sistema Nacional de Información Ganadera, the national livestock information system that publishes the aggregates.
- **DIEA**: MGAP's statistics directorate; it drew the census areas.
- **catalogodatos.gub.uy**: the national open-data catalogue (CKAN) where SNIG publishes one package per year.

## The geography

- **Departamento**: one of Uruguay's 19 first-level divisions. DICOSE codes them 1–19 alphabetically (1 Artigas … 19 Treinta y Tres); in the cube they are `urn:sophia:cow:department/<code>`.
- **Área de enumeración**: a DIEA census area, the finest grain published (635 codes). A holding is placed in the area holding most of its declared land; code `0` means it could not be placed. An area can straddle a department line, because the department is where the holder is registered.
- **Seccional policial** and **área de supervisión**: older administrative grids also carried on every row.

## The counts

- **PD_AD** (*propios dentro + ajenos dentro*): animals physically on the holding, whoever owns them. The traditional DICOSE stock; the cube's `cow:animalsCount`.
- **PD_PF** (*propios dentro + propios fuera*): the holder's own animals, here or elsewhere. DICOSE uses it for dairy; the cube's `cow:animalsCountPf`.
- **Nacimientos, mortandad, consumo**: calves born, deaths and animals slaughtered for the holding's own consumption during the year. Births are declared only for cattle.
- **Tenedores**: holders, the people or companies that declare.
- **Superficie ganadera**: hectares a holder uses for livestock (`cow:livestockHectares`).
- **Unidades ganaderas (UG)**: livestock units, a grazing-equivalent weight per category (below).

## The land

- **Campo natural**: native grassland (and stubble), most of Uruguay.
- **Praderas artificiales permanentes**: sown permanent pasture.
- **Campo mejorado / fertilizado**: native grassland improved by overseeding or fertiliser.

## The trade

- **Cría**: breeding; keeping cows and selling calves. **Invernada**: finishing; buying young cattle and fattening them. **Ciclo completo**: both.
- **Offtake / extraction rate**: cattle that left the farms in a year (to slaughter, live export, or another region), inferred from the herd's books; as a share of opening stock.

## Species and categories

| code | species |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | BOVINOS |
| 2 | OVINOS |
| 3 | YEGUARIZOS |
| 4 | CAPRINOS |
| 5 | SUINOS |
| 10 | AVES |
| 11 | BOVINOS DE LECHE |

Category codes are only unique *within* a species: code 2 is a breeding cow for beef cattle, a breeding ewe for sheep and a milking cow for dairy cattle. The cube's category IRIs carry the species (`urn:sophia:cow:animal-category/<species>/<code>`).

**Beef cattle (BOVINOS)**, species code `1`:

| code | DICOSE label | livestock-unit weight |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 1) TOROS | 1,25 |
| 2 | 2) VACAS DE CRIA (ENTORADAS) | 1,03 |
| 3 | 3) VACAS DE INVERNADA | 1,00 |
| 4 | 4) NOVILLOS DE MAS DE 3 AÑOS | 1,15 |
| 5 | 5) NOVILLOS DE 2 A 3 AÑOS | 0,90 |
| 6 | 6) NOVILLOS DE 1 A 2 AÑOS | 0,80 |
| 7 | 7) VAQUILLONA DE MAS DE 2 AÑOS SIN ENTORAR | 0,90 |
| 8 | 8) VAQUILLONAS DE 1 A 2 AÑOS | 0,70 |
| 9 | 9) TERNEROS/TERNERAS | 0,50 |

**Dairy cattle (BOVINOS DE LECHE)**, species code `11`:

| code | DICOSE label | livestock-unit weight |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 1) TOROS | 0,55 |
| 2 | 2) VACAS EN ORDEÑE | 0,58 |
| 3 | 3) VACAS SECAS | 0,18 |
| 4 | 4) VAQUILLONAS DE MÁS DE 2 AÑOS SIN ENTORAR | 0,00 |
| 5 | 5) VAQUILLONAS DE 1 Ó 2 AÑOS | 0,00 |
| 6 | 6) TERNEROS DE MENOS DE 1 AÑO | -0,10 |
| 7 | 7) TERNERAS DE MENOS DE 1 AÑO | -0,10 |

**Sheep (OVINOS)**, species code `2`:

| code | DICOSE label | livestock-unit weight |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 1) CARNEROS | 0,17 |
| 2 | 2) OVEJAS DE CRIA(ENCARNERADAS) | 0,17 |
| 3 | 3) OVEJAS DE DESCARTE(CONSUMO) | 0,15 |
| 4 | 4) CAPONES | 0,15 |
| 5 | 5) BORREGAS 2 A 4 DIENTES SIN ENCARNERAR | 0,13 |
| 6 | 6) CORDERAS DIENTE DE LECHE | 0,11 |
| 7 | 7) CORDEROS DIENTE DE LECHE | 0,11 |
| 8 | 8) CORDEROS/AS MAMONES | 0,08 |

## The cube

- **RDF Data Cube** (`qb:`): each CSV row is an observation with dimensions (year, department, census area, species, category …) and measures (`cow:animalsCount`, `cow:milkLiters`, `cow:hectares` …). Classes: `cow:AnimalFlowObservation`, `cow:AnimalCategoryStockObservation`, `cow:GeneralHoldingObservation`, `cow:LandUseObservation`, `cow:MilkProductionObservation` and others.
- **PROV**: every observation names its source file (`cow:sourceFile`, with filename and SHA-256) and row (`cow:sourceRowNumber`).
- **Named graphs**: observations, codelists, derived metrics and quality reports live in separate named graphs per year, so every SPARQL pattern must sit inside `GRAPH ?g { … }`.
- **Derived metrics** (`cow:DerivedMetricObservation`): ratios and shares cow-tools materialises at ingest, e.g. `cow:metric_bovine_per_livestock_hectare`.
- **Quality warnings** (`cow:QualityWarning`): what the ingest noticed, per year; read them before comparing years.

See also: [`how-to-ask-this-data`](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/how-to-ask-this-data/index.md), [`reading-path`](https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/reading-path/index.md).

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This document is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), credit "cow-tools, Sophia Labs"; the data it describes keeps its own licence (Uruguay's open-data licence).

The cow-tools guide, Reference: https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/glossary-dicose/ (this page for people) · the whole guide: https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/guide/index.md · in Sophia: the graph `cow-tools-guide`, document `glossary-dicose` (MCP `read_document` at https://cow-tools.sophia-labs.com/mcp). CC BY 4.0, credit "cow-tools, Sophia Labs".