An approach to some characteristics of Dual-Purpose Livestock Farming in Venezuela at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century

Abstract

In order to characterize management and productive aspects of dual-purpose cattle ranching systems, a 45-question survey was applied to 146 Venezuelan producers who defined themselves as dual-purpose out of the total of 193 who responded to the survey (75.65%) that was provided to 720 ranchers from almost all the producing states of the country in a group belonging to a Telegram group. From the data obtained, responses were tabulated, being characterized statistically using software and making some comparisons with variables of interest that reported differences. From the sample, large in covered territory and small in national statistical representation, it can be concluded regarding dual-purpose livestock systems that: There is a tendency to reduce the number of small dual-purpose Production Units (PU); forage conservation only occurs in almost 1/3 of the PU; almost ¼ of the PU do not supplement with minerals and 14% do not have a defined health plan; compared to the last century, there is a slight advance in the average volume of lactations and liters per cow day; There is also a slight improvement in lifetime weight gain for the present century; even though almost 30% of the PUs do not keep records, more than 2/3 do not keep accounting records; regarding technical assistance, only about 40% have it in the PU and almost ¾ have external technical assistance, 1 in 4 have no technical assistance; Dual-purpose systems with rearing, with or without concentrate supplementation, present the best productive performances.