I have accepted another challenge that will be a handful, but challenges have always been the fuel that drives my life and motivates me to want always more.

I undertook the Executive Management of the Brazilian Mineral Supplement Industries Association – together with the new president and old friend. Marcos Alberto Mantelato from Bellmann Animal Nutrition company.

Since the time when I was President of ANDIFOS – National Association of Phosphates in Animal Feed Industries, I HAVE FELT THAT WE CAN INITIATE A COLLECTIVE ACTION INVOLVING BRANCHES OF OUR SEGMENT to foster the growth of the animal feed market, and the time is now!

Our motivation will always be the fact of having witnessed the productivity growth of our crops compared to the situation 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

The largest beef trade market in the world is already ours. Our cattle raisers took our beef to places in the world that we would never imagine. Iran, China, Russia. However, a lot remains to be done. and only by joining producers of raw materials, PCs, vitamins, rations, mineral salt, mineral supplements, small and giant companies in order to prepare together a development plan, with the support of the entire scientific community and of the large companies involved in the project.

The world is plural today, with a large team of thinking heads. We know that it is possible to achieve this huge goal in a short period of time. We are certainly bold but the market is out there, waiting for us.

Only 20% of the national territory are allocated to cattle raising and 10% to crops. Our former Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes believes that a more technical cattle raising, with herds being fed with correct food, we would be able to release 50 to 70 million hectares to our grain crops in the coming decade.

He also informs us that from 1990 to 2005, according to data from IBGE, our production grew by 131% and our agricultural area grew only by 16% (going from 36.8 million hectares to 43.9 million), all of it reached by the magic word “productivity”.

If we want to compare 1990 to 2009 in order to have updated data, figures will be as follows:

Along these 19 years, the grain production grew by 151% and the planted area by 28%. But, to make this miracle happen, fertilizers delivery grew by 173% in the same period.

Unfortunately, our animal supplement statistics date as of approximately 5 years ago, (ASBRAM) and there is very little material for assessments using these data. I am sure that if we join our forces and involved entities, we will be able to have a good snapshot of the industry to know the reason for the stagnation, and even reduction, in the consumption of mineral supplement.

Our efforts must be joined to those of large universities, research centers and the Federal Government, since through them we will be able to create tools that are crucial for our fight. We want better fed animals, with increasingly better genetics, generating wealth for their owners, since we believe that it is possible to use a smaller area to keep these herds (making the land available for agriculture), and faster slaughtering (less time for animal fattening) without loss in the quality of the produced beef.
We need immediately an EMBRAPA* for cattle beef, now!

Come and join us at ASBRAM around this ideal of fostering correctly a higher use of feed for our animals, aware that all of this will take place in country with a “green” mindset, where our major asset is our home, the Planet Earth.

We are all one. Therefore, our part in this entity called Earth includes its preservation, and this will always be our duty. We say yes to sustainability but always with the awareness that we have to care for our major asset: the world where we live and where our descendants will live.

Sources: IBGE, ANDA, ASBRAM/TONELLI PANEL.EMBRAPA – Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Brazilian Agricultural and Cattle Raising Research Company)

Elizabeth Chagas