It is the South, comprising the states of Rio
GrandedoSul, SantaCatarina andParaná, that
is responsible for the biggest amounts of milk
produced in Brazil over the past years, but
the leadership is still held by the Southeast,
which is also home to the biggest consumer
centers. For two decades, data on the collec-
tion of milk, surveyed by the Brazilian Institute
of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) attest that
the South, the second biggest producer since
the beginning, has raised its share from 23%
to 36% of the volume of milk collected. In the
meantime, the leading region, which used to
account for 50%of the total, remained at 41%.
In surveys conducted from 2011 to 2015,
again the South experienced the biggest in-
crease (4%), whilst the Southeast went up 3%;
the Center-West, 1.5%; all other regions expe-
rienced a decrease in production. In 2015, all
regions suffered reductions, but themain pro-
duction regions experienced smaller declines:
Southeast (-0.7%) and South (-0.9%). São Pau-
lo and Rio de Janeiro, of the first region, even
registered someprogress (3.3%and5.5%), the
same holds true for Rio Grande do Sul (1.7%)
and Santa Catarina (0.4%). The southern
states, including Paraná, made steps forward,
while in the Southeast the national leader,
Minas Gerais, expanded by 3.3%; São Paulo,
0.9%; and Rio, 13.4%.
An analysis by Samuel Oliveira, research-
er at Embrapa, on the IBGE numbers, from
1997 to 2015, has it that “technological chang-
es only implemented in the South, have re-
sulted into expressive productivity gains, from
1,634 liters to 2,789 liters per cow/year”. That
is why, in 2012, the two main milk producing
regions collected almost the same amounts of
milk: 23.5 million liters a day in the Southeast
against 22.6 million liters in the South. Trans-
portation and qualitative questions, accord-
ing to him, had a negative influence upon the
growing rhythm of supply in the South, thus
widening the gap between the two regions.
The analyst also comments on the expan-
sion of the milk production frontier that took
place from 1997 and 2000 in the Center-West
and North, with production facilities far from
the consumer centers, basedon theUHT tech-
nology, smaller land costs and uninterrupted
growth in income and consumption. “Never-
theless, this movement has reached its final
stage over the past years”, observes Samuel.
He equally argues that in the recent weak-
er demand and tighter competition environ-
ment, regions that rely on common techno-
logical patterns, with higher production costs
and far away fromconsumer centers are facing
more severe risks in the dairy business.
Southeast and the South are leading producers in
Brazil and experience smaller decrease in
2015
Grazing on pasture
land in the South
Second largest cattle breeding region registers most expressive growth in two
decades with productivity gains stemming from technological improvements
Inor Ag. Assmann
12
Fonte:
IBGE, pesquisas de captação de leite.
OSESTADOSDOLEITE
Milk producing states
Maiores estados produtores, em 2015
(Participação no total, em %)
Minas Gerais (Sudeste)
26,8
Rio Grande do Sul (Sul)
14,5
Paraná (Sul)
11,8
São Paulo (Sudeste)
10,8
Goiás (Centro-Oeste)
10,2
Santa Catarina (Sul)
9,8
