October 20, 2010

Mato Grosso Has Largest Cattle Herd in Brazil

Mato Grosso is famous for its soybean production, but the state also has the largest cattle herd in Brazil as well. According to the Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics (Imea), in 2009 there were 110,000 property owners in Mato Grosso involved in cattle ranching and 40 thousand jobs in the state are directly related to cattle ranching. In 2009, there were 27 million head of cattle in Mato Grosso, which is 75% more than the 15 million head recorded in 1996. In 2009, 4.2 million head of cattle were processed in the various meat packing facilities in the state generating R$ 4.2 billion in income for the state's cattle ranchers. Brazil is also the second largest beef exported in the world.

The pasture acreage in the state increased 18% from 1996 to 2008 from 21.7 million hectares to 25.7 million hectares. The productivity of the pastures also increased 38% from a carrying capacity of 0.78 head per hectare in 1996 to 1.01 head per hectare in 2008. If the cattle herd in the state had increased the same amount without the increase in the carrying capacity, an additional 6.62 million hectares of land would have had to be cleared and converted to pastures.

Many of the cities in the state got their start with cattle ranching and according to the Mato Grosso Ranchers Association (Acrimat), the cattle herd in the state will continue to increase. Mato Grosso is a very large state (six times larger than Illinois) and there is ample room in the state for increased cattle production and row crop production even though 64% of the land in the state is in national parks, conservation areas, and indigenous lands.