Record cattle herd in Brazil
The number of cattle in Brazil, one of the world’s largest exporters of meat and leather, rose by 3% in 2021 and broke a record in the country, the government has reported.
Cattle numbers reached 224.6 million head last year, according to data released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). This surpassed the previous maximum of 218.2 million head, which was recorded in 2016. Last year was the third consecutive year in which Brazil’s cattle population has grown.
According to IBGE, the record was the product of the increase in calf births compared to the fall in the number of cattle slaughtered, owing to the lack of animals of slaughter age. The state of Mato Grosso, in the central west of the country, led the number of animals with more than 32.4 million, equivalent to 14.4% of the national total.
