Characterization of cattle raising in Paraíba State, Northeastern Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Clementino, Inácio José
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Pimenta, Carla Rodrigues Menezes, Fernandes, Leise Gomes, Bezerra, Camila de Souza, Alves, Clebert José, Dias, Ricardo Auguto, Amaku, Marcos, Ferreira, Fernando, Telles, Evelise Oliveira, Gonçalves, Vitor Salvador Picão, Ferreira Neto, José Soares, Azevedo, Sérgio Santos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Semina. Ciências Agrárias (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/semagrarias/article/view/15771
• topic: Cattle; Production systems; Production characteristics.; Bovinocultura; Sistemas de produção; Características produtivas.; Medicina Veterinária

The aim of this work was to characterize the cattle raising in Paraíba State, Northeastern Brazil. The State was divided into three cattle production regions according to its mesoregions: production region 1 (Sertão mesoregion), production region 2 (Borborema mesoregion) and production region 3 (Agreste and Zona da Mata mesoregions). Overall, 689 rural properties from the three production regions were randomly selected. The variables used in the characterization were production system, farming system, type of milking, use of artificial insemination, milk cooling, number of lactating cows, daily milk production, herd size and number of bovine females > 24 months of age. It was found that most farms in Paraíba State are family or subsistence farms, predominantly mixed production, semi-intensive farming, with utilization of hand milking and natural mating, without use of milk cooling, low number of lactating cows and daily milk production. It were found differences and similarities among production regions so that it is suggested that such aspects must be taking into account in livestock development public policy planning, as well as in the implementation of disease control strategies.