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Guanacaste Cattle Producers Get Together To
Promote Beef Consumption
Guanacaste
Cattle Producers Get Together To Promote
Beef Consumption
(InfoWebPress) – The Ministry of Agriculture
and Livestock Production (MAG), in
coordination with the Federation of Chambers
of Guanacaste Cattlemen and the Cattle
Promotion Corporation (CORFOGA), will hold
an activity next March 29 at the Chamber’s
hall in Liberia’s Barrio El Capulin with the
goal of promoting the consumption of beef.
According to Gilberto Lopez Lara,
coordinator of MAG’s cattle ranching
network, producers will receive during the
activity a manual of recommendations for
sustainable management of cattle production
in the Chorotega (Guanacaste) region. The
manual offers technological information for
the region, which is expected to contribute
to the improvement of this important
economic activity in the province and the
quality of life of many Guanacaste families.
The event will also include talks about
myths surrounding the consumption of beef
products and the benefits of this type of
meat, to encourage their consumption.
Aware that no other economic activity in the
region distributes so much income among so
many families as cattle ranching, MAG seeks
to raise the production levels through a
more technologically based production
system.
According to Juan Bautista Mendez Cruz, a
MAG official in Hojancha, in the Chorotega
region cattle ranching generates some 6
million colones ($10,900) per family on an
annual basis.
Mendez Cruz also said that in the region
there are some 377,000 hectares dedicated to
cattle ranching, involving some 7,000
families. The average size of each farm is
57 hectares per producer, with 81 percent of
them being run by small and medium
producers.
The number of cattle heads in the region is
around 330,000, of which 70 percent are for
meat production, 22 percent for mixed uses
(meat and milk), and 8 percent for dairy
production. Mendez Cruz estimates that right
now average production is 150 kilograms per
hectare, and officials hope to increase
these levels in the coming moths.
Recently, Agriculture Minister Javier Flores
Galarza visited Guanacaste to exchange
experiences with producers and deliver some
30 million colones (around $54,000) to
Nicoya cattle ranchers to help them carry
out more environmentally friendly practices
that would also boost their income.
Ernesto Enrique Cavaria, president of the
Nicoya Chamber of Cattle Ranchers, said
these funds will allow them to usher a new
production concept, much more friendly with
the environment — where the protection of
natural resources present in the farms
(particularly water) is key, preventing
cattle from stomping on springs and reducing
the cutting of trees alongside streams.
The program also calls for better management
and production practices such as planting of
improved forages and forages for bailing,
establishment of paddocks, infrastructure
remodeling, protection of water sources and
reforestation of pastures. All of this would
allow producers to increase the number of
heads on their land, improve the quality of
the cattle, increase production and
reproduction rates, and better manage their
herds.
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