agriculture

Good year for beef growers

Despite increases in the cost of production due to higher fuel prices and the loss of livestock to bovine tuberculosis, Panama’s cattle industry had a good year.

"In 2007, activity in the beef cattle industry was reasonably good, but the dairy industry faced a year full of contradictions," said Euclides Díaz, the executive secretary of the Asociación Nacional de Ganaderos (Anagan).

The secretary went on to specify that, one of the most serious problems confronted by the sector this year was a lack of dialogue with milk processing plants in order to obtain a better price for the crude product. The industry also faced another problem this year: the changeover of some milk producers to producers of beef cattle, a situation which, according to Díaz, is already beginning "to normalize itself because of the increase in price of grade C milk used for the production of cheeses and evaporated and condensed milk."

In November of this year, 25,126 animals were slaughtered, compared to 24,962 in November of 2006, according to the Contraloría General de la República.

In the case of milk, production levels matched those of 2006, or 170 million liters, which represents around $44 million to the industry.

The demand for meat in Panama this year has been so high that exports fell. "Considering the demand from hotels and the arrival of foreigners, there has been an increase in sales of special cuts, and that competes directly with the exportation of beef," the director of Anagan pointed out.