Brazil cattle herd up 3.1% in 2021, Mato Grosso heads list of states

Brazil’s national cattle herd saw a 3.1 percent increase, reaching 224.6 million heads in 2021—a record of the time series that began in 1974. The estimates were released today (Sep 22) by official statistics agency IBGE.

The sharpest growths were reported in the states of Bahia (2 million head), Pará (1.5 million), and Tocantins (1 million).

Regions

Brazil’s Central-West holds the largest slice of bovine herd, with 75.4 million head—33.6 percent of the national cattle. The North continues to expand and showed the largest quantitative increase, reaching 55.7 million animals, or 24.8 percent of the country’s total.

The steepest percentage rise was seen in the Northeast (9.5%), the fourth largest regional herd, which reached 13.9 percent of the total countrywide. Meanwhile, the South, with the smallest herd (10.5%), was the only region that reported a drop—down 1.8 percent—a phenomenon observed since 2017. The expansion in the North stemmed mainly from Pará and Tocantins; and, in the Northeast, from Bahia.

States

Atop the list of states stands Mato Grosso, boasting an estimated 32.4 million head—the equivalent to 14.4 percent of the national herd. Second place goes to Goiás (10.8%); third to Pará—which started occupying this position in the 2020 survey. With another year on the rise, the state reached 10.7 percent of Brazil’s total herd.