Evaluation of a new methodology for the representation of livestock in Brazil

ABSTRACT

In the municipality's livestock product representation in Brazil, the use of indicators with absolute or relative valuation can generate problems such as underestimation or overestimation. The type of data used can be influenced by the quantitative productive factors associated to the area's size and not to the further development of the activity. The present study compared three types of data for the representation of the productive profile of the dairy livestock in Brazil: the productive percentage, the productive density, and quantitative efficiency. The municipalities that led the production in the productive percentage were larger (52,460 ha in pasture), with a high number of low production cows; on the other hand, the productive density grouped the smaller (8,084 ha in pasture) with few high production cows. The best representation was for the quantitative efficiency that grouped municipalities of intermediate size (23,234 ha in pasture) with a high number of cows with high production. The quantitative efficiency constitutes a new approach for the representation of dairy farming, its application integrates the criteria quantity and efficiency, and reduces problems caused by the high variation in the size of the municipal areas.

Keywords:
absolute data; relative data; livestock; dairy farming