This is a subscriber-only article
As I reported last week, the pace of change within the Brazilian tillage sector has been phenomenal. Land that ten years ago had carrying capacity of just 0.25LU/ha (the equivalent of one cow per 4/ha) has been transformed into highly productive tillage land with the capacity to grow three crops in one year.
The pace of change within the Brazilian beef sector has been at a much slower rate. The bulk of the national herd continues to be slaughtered at between three and four years of age at the typical carcase weight of 245kg. Getting an exact handle on age at slaughter is a challenge for the industry given the incomplete traceability system.
Conformation
Travelling across the country, there has been a noticeable improvement in animal conformation, with O=/O+ grading animals now more common than the typical P grading animals that dominated back in 2006.
This is perhaps more a reflection of the fact that an increasing number of male animals are now slaughtered as bulls as opposed to steers. However, similar to Ireland, the production system is being frustrated by processors implementing a price penalty on bulls over steers.
The drive to bulls is an attempt by farmers to drive up output. Typically, liveweight gain from birth through to slaughter is 0.4kg per day, or around 50% lower than is achieved on Irish farms. While liveweight gain during the grazing year can peak at over 1kg on a grass-only diet, there are periods in season where animals will actually lose condition.
This is one issue that does appear to be receiving more attention with Embrapa, the state-funded research and advisory service, heavily promoting the feeding of additional supplements during the grazing season in order to maintain performance.
Feedlot systems
Figures indicate that, of the 35 to 40 million head of cattle finished off grass each year, just 2.5 million are being fed concentrates. A much faster trend to develop is that of feedlot systems typical of what would be commonly seen in the US. This of course is also driving the shift towards bull beef systems.
Over five million head or 13% of the national kill are now being finished out of confinement feedlot systems each year.
The more intensive finishing systems tend to be operated on farms that are also operating tillage enterprises. One such example is the finishing system operated by the Bom Futuro group, a 280,000ha family farming business in the state of Cuiaba. While cropping was the main enterprise on the farm, 70,000 head of cattle were slaughtered each year.
Despite the scale of the cattle enterprise, the farm operated to an extremely high level of technical efficiency. The discipline of implementing the latest technologies to drive efficiency in the tillage enterprise has clearly influenced the beef production system.
Given the quality of the land on the farm and its ability to generate substantially higher returns from crops than grass, all of the 70,000 animals were purchased as weanlings from farmers running suckler cows on margin lands further south.
In total, the farm has 8,000ha of permanent pasture, with a further 6,400ha of what was classed as second crop pasture. The 8,000ha of permanent pasture tended to be on weaker, sandy soils with a low clay content. Second-crop pasture was where grass seeds were sown into soya crops by airplane 10-15 days prior to harvest. Forty-five days post-harvest, growing bulls were moved on to these swards and set stocked at around 1,500kg/ha.
Grass quality was excellent and fuelled by the residual nitrogen in the soil following the crop of soya beans. No additional nitrogen was applied to these swards.
“Paddocks” were typically divided into 100ha blocks using electric fencing, with 400 to 500 bulls in each grazing group. After a five-month grazing period, these fences would then be removed, the grass burnt off and soya beans or corn planted.
On grass only, these bulls were achieving 0.65/kg per day. However, in groups where meal was being fed at 2-3kg per head per day, liveweight gain increased to 1kg per day. Feeding meal to bulls in groups of 400 was made possible through the construction of permanent feed troughs in each paddock.
Troughs were filled with concentrates every two to three days, with intakes restricted through the inclusion of salts and intake inhibitors.
Ninety to 120 days prior to slaughter, bulls were then moved from these second-crop grass swards on to more marginal land. Group size was reduced to 150 bulls in 70ha paddocks. These paddocks also have large feed troughs constructed in such a way that allowed for bulls to be fed ad-lib concentrate for 90-100 days prior to slaughter at 28 months.
Intakes
Grass was merely a roughage, with concentrate intakes ranging from 10-12kg per head per day. The ration largely consists of maize, cotton and soya, with protein adjusted from 24% for the growing animals down to 14% for the finishing animals. The cost of the ration was the equivalent of €140/t, although this was somewhat inflated due to a shortage of corn due to droughts the previous year. More typically, the ration would have cost the equivalent of €100/t.
The performance on this farm outpaces national averages by some margin. Typically, bulls were slaughtered at 28 months averaging 600kg liveweight, delivering a carcase weight of 310kg. The beef price was paid on a flat-rate equivalent to €2.70/kg. Mortality on the farm that was typically running 115,000 head at grass throughout the year was running at just under 2%.
The growing dominance of the US-style feedlot system was evident when visiting the farm of Eduardo Correa Riedel in Mato Grosso Do Sul. Trading under the business name of SapéAgro, the 5,500ha farm was predominately focused on growing soya beans, corn, oats and sugar cane. Interestingly, oats were included in the rotation largely to provide straw that could be incorporated back into the soil to maintain organic matter.
Once again we saw how the marginal land that was not suitable for cultivation was being used to produce beef. In this instance, 400ha were used to carry a herd of 1,200 Brangus suckler cows. Additional grazing was provided by under-sowing corn with grass seed as part of the three-crop yearly rotation.
An example of the extent to which this farm had driven productivity over the past two decades was the fact that the beef enterprise consisting of 1,200 cows used to consume the entire 5,500ha farm.
The transformation was largely down to improving soil quality. The application of 15-20/t of lime per ha over the past 20 years has seen grass swards with the capacity to graze one cow per ha now growing sugar cane crops yielding 120t/ha. However, the establishment of a feedlot system was also an integral part of maintaining output from the beef herd on effectively 10% of the land area.
Progeny from the suckler herd are more or less weaned at eight or nine months and then transferred directly into the feedlot. The style of the feedlots are basically a mirror image of what you would see in the US, with topsoil removed and penning constructed using post and wire fences. With Aberdeen Angus the sire of choice, the farm is focused on supplying beef for the US market produced under the swift black system, which demands animals are at least 5/8th AA bred.
Economics
The economics of the feedlot system are well refined. With feed produced and milled on site, with the exception of soya beans, and with liveweight performance running at 2.1kg per day, the cost per kilo of deadweight gain was €1.70/kg.
This compares to a beef price of €2.80/kg. Typically bulls averaged 600kg with a 54% kill-out.
Nevertheless despite the impressive levels of performance, margins from the beef enterprise at less than €80/ha were typically three times lower than what was achieved from the typical crop rotation.
Poultry
Along with the intensive feedlot system, the farm has also recently invested in a large-scale poultry enterprise producing almost one million broilers per year. Fifty of these units have been built in the area over the past year – again clearly aligned to a strategy of trading up the protein ladder before selling it off-farm.
An intensive dairy herd is also in the process of being established on the farm, with 200 sexed Dutch embryos having been implanted in heifers this year. Again it is the US production model that is being developed at a cost equivalent to €2,000 per cow. Milking will be carried out using robots which will be leased. The decision to go down the robotic route was based on the availability of skilled labour.
SHARING OPTIONS: