R
esponsible for one fifth of glob-
al beef production – with a herd
of 220million head and produc-
tion of 10 million tons carcass
equivalent (TCE) – and one of
the lowest production costs, Brazil continues
competitiveasabigglobalexporter.About20
percent of its production is shipped abroad,
whilst80percentisconsumedinthedomes-
tic scenario. Intense demand exceeds 36 ki-
lograms per person a year and, in recent
years, it was 40 kilograms.
The expectation is for consumption to
go up in the domestic market in 2018 and,
in the meantime, exports are equally ex-
pected to soar. The results in 2017 were
positive for shipments abroad, a good sur-
prise after the ripple effects caused by Op-
erationWeak Flesh and the plea bargain by
brothers Wesley and Joesley Batista, own-
ers of JBS, at Operation Car Wash.
The report by the Center for Applied
Studies on Advanced Economics (Cepea),
of the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture
(Esalq) , a division of the University of São
Paulo (USP), indicates that, once turbulence
had faded away and the reorganization ca-
pacity was ascertained, along with the ca-
pacity to react against a turbulent scenar-
io in 2017, the cattle farming sector showed
great optimism since the beginning of 2018,
and remained very focused. “An economi-
cally favorable scenario in the national and
international market is expected, which is
supposed to benefit the beef supply chain
greatly”, Cepea officials comment.
Ratified by the International Monetary
Fund (FMI), the expectation for the global
economy to evolve suggests the elimina-
tion of barriers and the expansion of trade
opportunities. In the domestic scenario,
the resumption of growth based on lower
interest rates, on the control of inflation,
on a stable exchange rate, on the reduc-
tion of unemployment and improvement
of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) favors
the consumption of proteins. Cepea offi-
cials anticipate a 2.2 percent rise in beef
Beef cattle production scenario looks promising
for 2018, but it does notmean that it is free of risks
stemming fromexternal and internal factors
Focused
Robispierre Giuliani
52
