Cattle slaughter growth slows in Q4 of 2018

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Brazil’s cattle slaughter reached 8.1m heads in Q4 of 2018, up 0.4% year-on-year. However, the increment fell short of the annual growth seen up to October which was over 3%. DatamarNews reported cattle slaughter increased 3.6% to 8.28m head in the third quarter of 2018, year-on-year.

Nevertheless, thanks to the higher average weight of cattle, slaughtering produced an increase of 0.9% to 2.05m tons of carcasses compared to the fourth quarter of 2017, while leather purchase by tanneries improved 2% to 8.9m items year-on-year.

The IBGE also reported slaughtering for the pork industry reached 11.1m heads in the last quarter of 2018, up 0.4% year-on-year. However, the lower price of carcasses led to a reduction in pork production. Slaughtering yielded 970,500 tons in the same period, down 1.5% year-on-year.

Lastly, year-on-year poultry slaughter fell 0.9% to 1.4bn birds due to a series of foreign embargoes and higher bird feed costs. However, poultry egg production rose 8.2% year-on-year to 928.4m eggs in Q4, the highest recorded by the IBGE research series.

Sharing is caring!