The meat market in Brazil is undergoing an important transition. It is estimated that in the next 20 years there will be a 35% increase in global demand for meat, resulting from the growing consumption of animal protein in Asian countries. Our country is a central actor in carrying out this task, but we must prepare to qualify our production and be eligible to meet an increasingly demanding consumer profile, whether in the domestic or foreign market.
In general, despite technological advances in recent years, the “livestock business” in Brazil has been conducted in an unprofessional manner. Pastures have been managed in an extractive manner, without adequate management, without the necessary soil correction, with extensive areas showing some level of degradation – due to excessive stocking or lack of strategic planning (technical and financial) –, resulting in low rates zootechnicians.
Livestock farming is so resilient that, even in this difficult situation, it can even generate profitability, but delivers a financial result far below its potential. On the other hand, grain crops have more professional management, with high investments in soil correction, fertilization, weed and pest management, etc., with a bias focused on productive and financial results. Unlike livestock farming, grain farming is not resilient: if poorly managed, it will fail!
Both in pure livestock systems and in integrated production systems (livestock + crops) it is possible to enjoy the resilience characteristic of livestock – and also enhance production. Modern livestock farming must be compatible with intensive systems (in the sense of knowledge application), so that they are effectively profitable in the medium and long term, achieving productivity goals with environmental responsibility.
To this end, there are currently several technology options. The market, as always, will define which ones will have a future. However, it is necessary for scientific knowledge – common to all of them – to reach the producer in real time, in order to enable production systems to be more efficient and absorb technological innovations more quickly, particularly those that are multifunctional and associated with the production of several ecosystem services. This is what is called, internationally, climate-smart agriculture.
“Analogy with grain farming draws attention to the potential of livestock ‘cultivation’.”
Investments and assumptions
The concept of “Meat Farming” is an analogy to grain farming, a way of remembering that farming means “cultivation”. Animal production on pasture, which should be understood as farming, requires cultivation (management, management). It requires adequate financial and technical investments, just like grain crops. And to obtain good productivity in “Meat Farming”, with high profitability, it is necessary to invest in technologies (cultivars, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) that enable high forage production. Harvesting this crop through grazing is crucial, as there is no profitability if the forage is not efficiently transformed into meat – and of quality.
In “Meat Farming”, the use of modern technologies allows more arrobas to be produced and more money in the producer’s pocket. Among the technologies that align with the climatesmart concept, we highlight:
- a) “Farm Design”: intelligent planning of land use in space and time, designing strategies for high and uninterrupted nutrient intake by animals. Ditto regarding soil coverage;
- b) Organized herd structure, in order to optimize the animal stock;
- c) Structured and qualified work team;
- d) Improving soil fertility, in line with the property’s goals and cash flow;
- e) Control of pests and diseases, favoring biological forms of combat;
- f) Grazing management, in order to favor the consumption of leaf blades, qualifying the meat and mitigating methane emissions.
In this last topic, Rotational Grazing stands out, a new management philosophy where the focus is on the ingestive behavior of the grazing animal, as, in this situation, the animal seeks pasture structures that minimize its time spent grazing. Each type of pasture has an ideal structure or height that makes it easier to capture the animals and saves them time. Management must provide for the uninterrupted supply of these structures (as much as possible).
Field Example
Rotational grazing was the first action of “Lavoura de Carne” carried out at Fazenda Horizonte, a 280 ha property in Diamante do Sul, central-western region of Paraná, which saw its reality change in just over a year. The concepts, in the form of specialized technical assistance, were brought to the property, at the end of 2018, by SIA – Agribusiness Intelligence Service, a private partner and extension arm of SIPA, formed by students from the universities that form it and whose objective is disseminate sustainable production systems.
The property had 286 cows, a weaning rate of 61% and a weight of 6.1%/calf (Figure 2). After the diagnosis was made, the “Meat Farming” techniques were applied in a planned manner. For rotational grazing, the farm’s operational team was trained to manage marandu pastures, at optimal management heights, between 40 cm and 24 cm.
The second action was a careful analysis of the herd structure, well-defined breeding season and reduction of the mating period from five to three months. In the third action, together with managers, a pilot area of 39 ha was defined as a “management school”, an area that was corrected and fertilized so that rotation could be experimented with in highly productive pastures. In this way, the work team “got the hang of” management, without the investment impacting the property’s cash flow.
With the pilot area, property planning already indicated a likely surplus of pasture. Thus, an increase in replacement from 62 to 105 heifers was defined, and the purchase of an additional 80 pregnant cows. The herd increased to 428 cows exposed to reproduction in the 2019/20 harvest. In the pilot area, from October to April, 5 cows/ha were kept, in addition to calves and bulls.
The results of the harvest were: 93% weaning rate, 7@ average weight for weaned calves, R$ 1,053/ha in revenue and R$ 66 in return for each real invested, the last two within the Ebitda concept (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).
“In integrated systems, “meat farming” presents unbeatable results.”
Even better at ILP
Even more expressive results can be obtained when “Meat Farming” is practiced in integrated production systems, where it can yield, in the short period of 3 to 5 months of grazing (safrinha) 5@/ha, when the number is lower than that ( 4.5@) is reached, on average in Brazil, in one year (Figure 1).
Work recently conducted by Aliança SIPA at Fazenda Guarita, in Rondonópolis/MT, put the concepts of “Meat Farming” into practice in integrated systems. The production system has soybeans in the harvest and livestock in the off-season. Fertilization was carried out entirely on the pasture (system fertilization), without affecting soybean productivity. With the pasture benefiting from fertilization, rotational management with strategic supplementation (0.3% of live weight for 45 days) allowed the production of 15.6@ carcasses in 132 days of grazing. This increase in productivity (3.4 times greater than the average) is impossible to achieve in a grain crop.
It is important to remember that the concepts of “Meat Farming” can be applied to any property, of any size and in any region of the country. There is a lot of scientific knowledge supporting the concept. For its application to be successful, it is necessary for technicians to convert this knowledge into practical and specific management for each property; They are not “cake recipes” that can be repeated without planning.
Finally, the “Meat Farming” technique positively impacts the farm’s cash flow, making livestock farming very attractive and profitable. Therefore, it can help Brazil supply meat in the quantity and quality required by the market, in addition to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
* The SIPA Alliance is formed by the Research Group on Integrated Agricultural Production System at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul; by the Center for Innovation in Agricultural Technology at the Federal University of Paraná; and by the Research and Innovation Group on Pure and Integrated Agricultural Production Systems at the Federal University of Rondonópolis
Edicarlos Damacena de Souza
Agricultural engineer, master in Production Systems and PhD in Soil Science. He is a professor at the Federal University of Rondonópolis/Aliança SIPA.
Collaborating: Paulo César de Faccio Carvalho, professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul/SIPA Alliance, and Armindo Barth Neto, member of the Agribusiness Intelligence Service.
Source: Article published in the 2021 Yearbook of DBO Magazine
