Identification of productive systems of beef cattle in the northwest Region of Paraná, Brazil

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify beef cattle production systems in the northwestern part of the state of Paraná, Brazil. To achieve this, interviews with 42 randomly selected cattle breeders were conducted between the months of November and December 2016 to describe the reality of the farms of this region. These interviews were carried out through a semi-structured questionnaire containing 49 questions pertaining to the reality of farms regarding herd management and property (nutrition, health, reproduction, and animal welfare), environment care, property area, and realized activities. Additionally, this questionnaire described the requirements of slaughterhouse for animal housing and the values obtained by the animals marketed according to the producers. After the interviews were carried out, a data bank was created using the software Microsoft Excel (ver. 2010). The data was later transferred to the software PASW 18 for Windows to perform multivariate statistical analyses. Defining the most representative variables was realizedwith multivariate statistical analysis, and these were represented by factor analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis to define the production systems. Through statistical analysis, three different systems were defined: the first production system has 18, the second production system five, and the third production system has 18 cattle breeders. The three systems found in the northwest region of the state of Paraná have different production and marketing characteristics, with the second system being superior to the other systems.

Keywords

• Carne
• Comercialização
• Estruturação da Propriedade
• Produção Animal e Remuneração.