Best Production Practices For Improvement Of Beef Cattle Carcass Quality

Abstract Best production practices for Beef Cattle (BPP) is a protocol created by Embrapa Beef Cattle in Brazil, to guide farmers towards more sustainable production. The protocol includes checkpoints to the whole production system (management, nutrition, animal health and welfare, pasture, reproduction, environmental, etc.). Despite the benefits of the BPP, it is not mandatory for Brazilian farmers. As such, until the present moment only a few farmers have adopted it. The aim of this work was to evaluate the impact of the BPP on the carcass classification of animals from farms registered in the Brazilian government incentive program “Precoce MS.” The program was created in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul - Brazil in 2017 and provides tax benefits to beef producers who harvest animals at young ages with superior carcass quality. Nowadays, almost a quarter of the total beef harvested in MS State is originated from this program. The bonus ranges from 49% up to 67% of tax refunds, depending on the carcass classification. We have analyzed data from all animals slaughtered from the beginning of 2017 until the end of 2018, with a total of 1,107 million animals from 1,437 farms. At the slaughterhouse, animals were submitted to carcass classification. To comply with the program requirements, carcasses should meet three basic criteria: age (maximum 4 permanent teeth), fat deposition (between 1 mm and 10 mm) and carcass weight (> 225 kg for steers and bulls, and > 180 kg for heifers). Farmers that adopted BBP had only 12.4% of disqualified animals compared to 16,1% from farms that did not adopt the protocol (P < 0,001). We concluded that farms that follow the BPP protocol achieved significantly higher quality carcass, which should encourage more farmers to adopt the protocol in the future.