(MENAFN- Brazil-Arab News Agency (ANBA))
São Paulo – Following the certificate on live buffalo imports from Brazil approved by the United Arab Emirates, the Brazilian Association of Buffalo Breeders (ABCB, acronym in Portuguese) forecasts an increase in exports. ABCB president Caio Rossato believes the UAE certification 'comes at a good time', as the opening of this market stimulates the domestic production.
Brazil has 1.4 million buffaloes
Rossato projects a large demand for the purchase of living buffaloes both for milk and meat production, and not just from the UAE but from all Arab countries. 'At present, considering herd health issues, Brazil has a great potential to be a major buffalo exporter,' the ABCB's president says.
A researcher at the East Amazon unit of Brazil's state-run agricultural research agency Embrapa, José Ribamar Marques says the Brazilian herd is 'excellent quality' and believes there's a great opportunity for selling animals to the Arabs. 'They prefer living animals as they want to slaughter according to their religious precepts,' says Marques, pointing out that, out of the region's countries, Egypt is the largest buffalo producer.
The world's largest living buffalo exporter is India, a country that, for religious reasons, can't explore their bovine herds, which is also among the world's largest. On the other hand, the most recent destinations of living buffalo from Brazil, Rosseto says, were the Philippines, Venezuela and Angola.
Marques says that the Brazilian herds is estimated at 1.4 million animals, and the state of Para concentrates 45% of the production, a figure that goes up to 65% when the livestock of Amazonas and Amapá are included. Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo are major producers, too, but there're buffalo herds across all Brazilian regions.
Stable herd
The herd remains stable, Marques says, because around six years ago Venezuela, Argentina and Colombia imported approximately 15-20% of the female buffalos to produce their own herds. This purchase from the Latin American neighbors affected the expansion of the Brazilian herd.
'When females are exported, it takes some time to resume expansion,' he says. The researcher believes that there's a great potential for producing and exporting living buffaloes in the next years as there's a large demand for the consumption of buffalo meat in Brazil, so there're opportunities for increasing production for the domestic consumer and exports. 'Buffalo farming is the most promising alternative livestock for export,' he says.
Four breeds are raised in Brazil: Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, Carabao from Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, and Mediterraneam buffalo from Italy.
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According to figures from Comexstat, a foreign trade statistics system of Brazil's Ministry of Economy, in 2018 Brazil didn't export buffaloes, and in 2020 exports reached USD 639, down from the USD 13,286 exported in 2019. On the occasion, USD 12,100 in live animals went to Lebanon, an Arab country in the Middle East that didn't export anything last year. Other USD 1,186 were exported to Angola in 2019.
*Special report by Marcos Carrieri for ANBA.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
Flavia Fiorini/Embrapa
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