Intensifying small and medium size beef cattle raising farms.-
By Jorge Morales INTA-Costa Rica Pre-proposal for EMBRAPA funding February 27, 2012The problem.-
The beef cattle raising farm is the basis of the beef cattle industry, no calves no industry. In Costa Rica the beef cattle activity is under extensive management and is present in about 1,5 million hectares – 30 % of the country land; suitable and unsuitable land as well, along the country. Although in the last years, Costa Rica has been improving and reverting deforestation process occurred between the 40´s and the 80´s of the past century, this activity still is blamed of trespassing the ecological frontier – the agricultural frontier was trespassed long ago. Let’s say that although no supporting that fact but only with describing purposes, is understandable that activity had an extensive management at that time – there were plenty of available land and apparently far from any harmful ecological effect.
An extensive management of raising beef cattle only acts as an extracting system, as a natural resource predator. Biologically inefficient – 50 % cow´s fertility and very low weaning weights –and then economically unsound, as consequence it becomes to an unfeasible to invest business. After 70 years of this extractive production system, everything in the farm is exhausted, not only the natural resources, but also the cattleman.
The cattleman has flirted with technology, one day he proves a technology and other day another one. He is always looking for a miracle, but nothing have changed. Farm´s low productivity keeps the same level, none improvement at all. The interesting thing is that those technologies improve and are better than traditional ones. The best example is the new grass varieties. They produce more forage of better quality. No doubt about this, the cattleman and researchers agree on this as well. But at the production system level, as a whole, no improvement is visible as consequence of the introduction of those new grass varieties. Costa Rica is an example, 700 thousand hectares of these new grasses have been established by cattlemen since 1990´s to date, however the technical indicators of the activity are so low as always. As with new grass varieties, the cattlemen have tried with animal genetics, animal health, pasture and animal management, but they got the same result, without any improvement at all.
The cause of the problem.-
So, where is the problem? The answer is easy and simple. There are four to five, simple but basic, technologies that have to be together at the same time. The beef cattle raising farm, is a production system, we are not dealing with a simple and single crop. So, independently if we have tried an improved technology, in absence of at least one of the basic ones, there won´t be any improvement of the system. Productivity have no changed but prices go back and for since then. There are approximately 40 thousand cattle farmers in Costa Rica, 80 % of which are small and medium size – 40 to 80 ha, 30 to 60 cows, all of them depending economically of this activity.
Being trespassed the agricultural frontier, and even worse, trespassed the ecological frontier, and still having an unproductive beef cattle farm, there are no reasons, either, economical, technical, biological, environmental or moral to keep, this production system, under the same extensive management conditions. We have here an environmental problem, an economical problem and also a social problem, all of them, exacerbated by climate change. There is an urgent need to improve productivity and to keep patrimony of natural resources in equilibrium; in adjusting the farm and its management, also, to climate change. In this way, the farm is transformed into an opportunity, for cattlemen, to become into a successful manager of his farm that allows him investment, imagination and innovation, if he wants his business to grow.
Solving the problem.-
To have an intensive beef cattle raising farm means, to have the highest nutritional needs of the herd matched with, maximum annual available low cost nutrients of the farm. Because this is the best biological and economical management practice a cattleman can do. Hereafter the rest of the basic recommended technologies related to feeding animals (improved pastures and supplementation), reproductive management (calving time, weaning time, breeding time, crossbreeding animals, herd selection), animal genetics, animal health, grassland and pasture management and general farm management, must take over, all together. If one is missing, the result is similar to an extensive management beef farm, a unprofitable business that never, will respond to investment. This is what has been happening with calves’ producers. They use the recommended technologies now and then, but all of them never are applied together or in integrated form as it should be. One or more than one basic technology is always absent. This means just loosing time and money without any improvement or extra income at all. In doing this, cattleman just gets extending time of agony of being a beef cattle producer in extinction. Society is claiming an increasing competitiveness, employment and the equilibrium of environment. The extensive management practices, of today´s beef cattle farms, goes in the wrong direction to society claims. Time is gone for these types of farms, their change is urgent,
To solve the problem, it is needed the transformation of the traditional extensive beef farms into beef intensive farms. The only way of convince cattlemen and financial institutions to take the risk of doing it, after 70 years of believing, as a fact, that all possible things have been tried, is by means of demonstration.
It is by means of demonstration that cattlemen can be convinced that an intensified production system, as described before, is possible, is productive and environmental and economically sustainable and able to return profits to investment. But most important is that it can be reproducible, if such technologies and practices are implemented in integrated form. The old traditional method of technology transfer has to be changed also. Today, due to the global economical crisis, there are not enough public economical resources, to cover even 25 % of the cattlemen population, and even less if keeping the traditional, and also exhausted, technology transfer and outreach methods.
The scare public resources, besides the reluctance of cattlemen to technology due to their own failures, lack of farm profits, tired and worn outreach methods based mainly on visits and chats, all this, claims for a different approach to the technological change of the beef cattle farm. Cheaper and effective outreach approaches are needed such as farm models for demonstration.
It is possible to obtain fertility rates above 80 %, and over 250 kg weaning weights of beef cattle, if some existing specific basic technologies are used in integrated form at the farm level. It is possible to reach that productivity level together with a protected environment, if some specific related practices are also applied. At the end it is possible to have, an environmentally and economically sustainable farm, capable to produce returns to investment.
The proposal to solve the problem.-
The present proposal project is based on, the establishment of intensified models of small and medium size cattle farm, where basic existing technologies, practices, and management, will be integrated simultaneously. Chorotega region is one of the most important and traditional regions where beef cattle industry is located in Costa Rica, and because this, is the place selected to be the pilot area of the project.
Two small and medium size beef cattle farms, managed in extensive form, will be transformed in intensive beef cattle to become a technology transfer models and training centres for producers, extensionists, researchers, and other private and government officials.
Besides training on the basic technologies and management practices to intensify the system and the biological, economical and environmental outcome, it will be teach how to put the system in place gradually to be economically feasible. It is expected to have the two models ready in 24 months to initiate the training program immediately afterwards.
Besides a legal contract with the owners of the farms, the main purpose of being training models, ensures the sustainability of it after the end of the project that is expected to last no less than 5 years. This project is considered an intelligent investment as it is an inversion on a factor capable of transform other factors, in this case, traditional cattlemen, in modern business cattlemen.