October 4, 2011

Cattle slaughter reaches record high in Brazil's state

Cattle slaughter in Brazil's Mato Grosso state reached record high in August at 477,600 heads, approaching the state's production peak in August 2007, reports the state's Institute of Agricultural Economics (IMEA-MT) in a weekly newsletter.

The previous high of 494,500 in 2007 still stands, but the production from this August is 53,100 heads more than the previous high point recorded for this year in May.

The increase in cattle slaughter in Mato Grosso this year has been achieved in large part due to increasing the volume of young males intended for slaughter by 39%. It has amounted to 217,600 additional animals, and of those 205,200 head are between 24 and 36 months old.

This week in Mato Grosso there has been a slight decrease in the price of cattle, down roughly 0.14% to BRL85.95 (US$47.72) per arroba. (An arroba is a unique unit of weight measurement still used in agriculture circles in Spain, Portugal and Brazil. The modern metric arroba is roughly 15 kg, or 33 lb.)