A new genetic study on increasing meat productivity and tenderness
The new research indicates that Brazilian beef exports could be much larger if the quality of beef would be similar to that produced in Australia, Argentina, and Uruguay. The experts say that to improve productivity, besides meat tenderness, genetic improvement techniques are used to breed animals that gain weight more quickly or that better resist disease, according to Agencia FAPESP.
“Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of beef, in an industry whose 2016 revenue exceeded US$ 5 billion. The cost of producing Brazilian beef is one of the lowest in the world, but in order to expand market importance, beef production needs to adapt to the standards established by importers. Among quality concerns, tenderness, the amount and the type of marbling can influence the sensory characteristics and nutritional value of the beef,” said Luciana Correia de Almeida Regitano, a researcher at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, Livestock Raising Division – Southeast, and faculty member of the graduate program in Evolutionary Genetics and Molecular Biology at the Federal University of São Carlos (in São Paulo, Brazil).
Furthermore Luciana Regitano said that in Brazil, over 80% of beef cattle is Nelore. The breed, of the subspecies Bos taurus indicus, originated in India, but it does not produce meat that is as tender as that from breeds like Angus (Bos taurus taurus) that originated in Europe and presents more marbling. “Nelore cattle weigh less and have lower productivity and less tender meat. As a result, their price is lower,” she said.
“An important concern of the beef industry is feed cost for the herd, which can constitute up to 40% of production costs. Increasing feeding efficiency is a way to avoid expanding the area used for cattle breeding, which in Brazil is over 168 million hectares. In other words, greater efficiency has as a much an impact on the cost of production as it does on the environment,” Regitano said during FAPESP Week Nebraska-Texas, held on September 18-22 in the cities of Lincoln, Nebraska and Lubbock, Texas.
Regitano heads up the FAPESP-funded Thematic Project entitled “Molecular basis of meat quality in Nelore beef cattle”. The research study is a follow-up to a previous study that enabled the identification of genomic areas associated with the beef’s production and quality characteristics.
Brazil has the world’s largest commercial beef herd, numbering over 225 million heads of cattle, yet only 20% of Brazil’s production is intended for export. Because of this, beef ranks tenth on the list of products exported by Brazil, after soybeans, iron ore, oil, sugarcane, automobiles, chicken, cellulose, soybean meal and coffee.
Photo Source: HEITOR SHIMIZU / AGÊNCIA FAPESP
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