Rio de Janeiro – The slaughter of beef in the first quarter of 2013 was the greatest ever recorded by the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in the beginning of the year. The organisation disclosed on Tuesday (25) the Quarterly Research of Animal Slaughter and Acquisition of Milk, Leather and Egg Production, whose historic series started in 1997. In the first three months of this year, a total of 8.1 million heads of cattle were slaughtered, growth of 12.7% over the same period last year.
The accumulated growth was 1.9 million tonnes, 13.2 more than in the same period in 2012. Apart from that, there was reduction of 2.4% in comparison with the last quarter of last year. The growth in slaughter took place in all regions of the country. The southeast had the greatest growth, 18.1%, followed by the Midwest, with 17.5%. The North (6.2%), South (8%) and Northeast (2.3%) expanded less than the national average. Among the states, most prominent was Mato Grosso – apart from being the main producer, there was growth of 20.5%.
Slaughter of chicken dropped 1.2% in the same comparison, to 1.3 billion heads, a volume that exceeded that of the last quarter of 2012 by 3.4%. The accumulated weight of carcasses totalled 2.9 million tonnes, 0.9% less than in the first quarter of 2012 and 4.3% more than in the last. Production was concentrated in the South (60.2%) and Southeast (20.1%).
The acquisition of leather rose 8.4% over the same quarter in 2012 and 4.1% over the last three months of 2012, with 9.1 million whole parts of cattle. Egg production dropped 0.7%, as against the first quarter of last year and rose 0.8% as against the fourth quarter of 2012. São Paulo (29.4%), Minas Gerais (10.5%) and Paraná (9.5%) led production.
*Translated by Mark Ament
