Viabilidade econômica do confinamento de bovinos e aceitação da carne

Abstract

The competitiveness of production chains involves a sustainable context from an environmental, social and economic point of view. Thus, the intensification, perception and acceptance by consumers of products from production systems becomes important. Cattle confinement constituted an intensifier of the system, but with high investments and risks, producing meat with specific organoleptic characteristics. The objective of this study was to evaluate, through stochastic simulation methods, the economic viability of the confinement activity of steers and the perception, acceptance and knowledge of consumers of meat resulting from confinement. For the economic analysis, a database of historical quotations of inputs and products (2003 to 2022) of the confinement activity was formed. Production costs were apportioned and 30 cash flows were constructed, evaluating five different diets, three times of acquisition and marketing of animals, with or without bonuses from carcass quality programs. The stochastic method was used through Monte Carlo simulations, having as output the Net Present Value (NPV) performed in the Palisade @Risk® software version 7.5. The significance test and stochastic dominance were performed using the Asymptotic Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (Ksa) accompanied by Spearman's correlations in the SAS® University Edition. The confinement system showed negative means of NPV and no probability of NPV ≥0 for all diets. In the significance test, 78.26% of the 437 pairwise comparisons were significant (P <0.0001) in which 71.39% of the total comparisons are characterized as first-rate investors. In the sensitivity analysis, the costs that most influenced the NPV variation were the purchase of lean cattle, concentrated feed, commercialization of fat cattle and bulky feed. For the analysis of the perception, knowledge and acceptance of beef coming from a confinement system, a questionnaire was created in Google Forms, made available by online vehicles for consumers residing in the five Brazilian regions, totaling 496 respondents. The socio-demographic profile of consumers was characterized in the questionnaire and, afterwards, the perception and acceptance of the production system in confinement for cattle, with the data systematized in electronic spreadsheets in Microsoft Office Excel® 2016. Descriptive analyzes, principal component analysis (PCA) were performed ) and exploratory factor analysis with the Iterated Principal Factor method used to decompose the correlation matrix. Most associations made to the confinement system by consumers were positive. In the ACP, the two main axes, CP1 (axis x) and CP2 (axis y), explained 75.4% of the variations, presenting five groups in terms of the form of consumers' understanding. Well-being, sustainability and fat are criteria for buying meat, these factors are not related to price. Consumers with a higher level of education and income have greater knowledge and acceptability in relation to meat from confined cattle. Investment in bovine confinement in the state of Rio Grande do Sul is not economically viable, not being attractive for investment, but the product shows that meat originating in these production systems has acceptance, growth potential and appreciation.