Chicken and swine slaughters reach records in the 3rd quarter, says IBGE; cattle have fall

The slaughter of chicken and pigs in Brazil registered historic highs in the third quarter of this year, while the volume of slaughtered cattle retreated compared to the same period in 2020, IBGE data showed on Wednesday.

According to the survey, 13.72 million heads of pigs were slaughtered in the quarter of 2021, up 7.8% year-on-year.

“In the monthly index, the best results were registered for the months of July, August and September, providing a record of pig slaughter (in the quarter)”, stated the institute in a note.

The IBGE highlighted that the quarterly result of fresh pork exports calculated by the Foreign Trade Secretariat (Secex), which set a monthly record in September, contributed to the slaughter performance.

In chicken, the number of slaughters reached 1.54 billion heads, an increase of 1.2% year-on-year, the best third quarter in the historical series started in 1997, and the best result for the month of September, said the IBGE .

“The performance of exports of fresh chicken meat positively influenced the result… Even so, the domestic market was the one that most absorbed the growth in production,” he said.

In cattle, 6.94 million heads of cattle were slaughtered under some type of sanitary inspection service, down 10.7% from the third quarter of 2020. This is the lowest result since 2004.

The month with the best performance was August (2.52 million heads) and September was the one with the lowest activity (1.91 million heads), the data showed.

According to IBGE, the result indicates the trend of retention of females observed since the beginning of 2020, with a total of 2.29 million slaughtered sows.