Commodity Shuttle: With a drop in cattle slaughter, livestock has record productivity in 2021

Livestock farming experienced a scenario of contradiction in 2021. While the sector had the lowest number of cattle slaughtered in the last 17 years, it recorded a record in productivity per animal.

Good prices and more investments are putting livestock on new paths, following the advances made in crops and forest production, according to Thiago Bernardino de Carvalho, a researcher at Cepea (Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics).

The advance in productivity is important because it gives greater economic and environmental sustainability to the activity, according to the researcher.

The heavier animal brings greater profitability and reduces the need to increase pasture areas. The sector is turning the key, with a reduction in extractive bias and an increase in productivity, he says.

In 2021, cattle slaughter dropped to 27.3 million head, the lowest figure since 2004’s 25.9 million.

Meat production dropped to 7.34 million tons, according to carcass weight, the lowest volume since 6.78 million in 2011, says the researcher, based on figures from the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).

Meat production per animal, also based on carcass, rose to 269.1 kilograms in 2021, a historic record. In the average of the last two years, a phase in which the prices of arroba of beef accelerated, the average annual productivity was 265.5 kilos, well above the 251 kilos of the two immediately previous years.

The year-end period has been the one with the highest productivity growth, due to confinement. In the last quarter of last year, the average volume in the country was 276.8 kilos per animal, says Carvalho, based on figures from the IBGE.

For him, when the institute’s data are available by state, São Paulo and Mato Grosso will surely exceed the average of 280 kilos per animal.

The meat production obtained in recent years is far from that of the 2000s, when each animal yielded only 228 kilos.

Carvalho says that domestic consumers do not benefit much from the increase in productivity, since exports put upward pressure on beef prices.

This month, the value of the arroba of fattened cattle is US$ 64.55, the highest value ever recorded in the North American currency, according to Cepea.

The IBGE figures, pointing to the fall in meat production, confirm the period of retraction in the supply of animals last year. Falling to 7.34 million tonnes in 2021, production was 6% lower than in 2020 and 11% lower than in 2019.