Brazil has millions of cows, but one of them is extraordinary.
Worth $4 million, Viatina-19 FIV Mara Movéis is the most expensive cow ever sold at auction, according to Guinness World Records. This is 3 times more than the value of the last record holder. And, at 1,100 kilograms (more than 2,400 pounds), it weighs twice as much as an average adult of its breed.
Along a highway that passes through central Brazil, the owners of Viatina-19 have installed two posters praising its grandeur and inviting other people to make a pilgrimage to see the super cow.
Climate scientists agree that other people want to consume less beef, the largest agricultural source of greenhouse gases and one of the causes of deforestation in the Amazon. But the farm animal industry is a primary source of Brazil’s economic development, and the government is racing to conquer new export markets. The world’s largest beef exporter needs everyone in the world to eat its meat.
The epitome of Brazil’s bovine ambitions is the Viatina-19, the product of years of effort to raise meatier cows. The winners are sold at auctions with top-tier stakes, so high that wealthy breeders share ownership. They extract eggs and sperm from champion animals, create embryos and implant them into surrogate cows that they hope will produce the next magnificent specimens.
“We don’t kill elite cattle. We raised him. And in the end, we’re going to feed everybody,” said one of its owners, Ney Pereira, after arriving by helicopter at his farm in Minas Gerais. State. ” I think Viatina will provide that. “
The snow-white cow’s mind-boggling prize comes from how quickly it has developed enormous amounts of muscle, its fertility and, most importantly, how it has passed those characteristics on to its offspring, said Lorrany Martins, a veterinarian who is Pereira’s daughter and right. -handed. Breeders also value posture, hoof strength, docility, maternal talent and beauty. Those who need to improve the genetics of their farm animals pay about $250,000 for the opportunity to collect Viatina-19 eggs.
“It’s the closest thing to perfection achieved so far,” Martins said. “It’s a complete cow, it has all the characteristics that all owners are looking for. “
In Brazil, 80% of cows are zebu, a local subspecies of India with a unique hump and dewlap, or folds of skin that cover their necks. Viatina-19 belongs to the Nelore breed, bred for meat and milk, and makes up the majority of the Brazilian herd.
The city of Uberaba, where Viatina-19 lives, annually holds a collection called ExpoZebu, which is considered the largest zebu fair in the world. Organized a few weeks ago, it is a far cry from the Brazil imagined abroad. It consisted of boots, baseball caps, and blue jeans. The nightly concerts drew 10,000 spectators making one song their favorite country songs. But the greatest charm is shown daily by farm animals, where cows competed for values that raised the value of an animal at auction.
The most prestigious auction is called Raça Elo and will take place on April 28. When the first cow entered the paddock, the loudspeakers shouted “We are the champions” of Queen. But this cow is only an undeniable appetizer in front of this year’s star, Donna. and 3 of its clones; The final sale value puts its total cost at 15. 5 million reais ($3 million).
The commodity boom in the 2000s boosted Brazilian agriculture, especially with China, which buys soybeans and beef. Today, the influence of agriculture extends to the Brazilian Congress and to the national consciousness. And Brazil, along with the United States, is at the forefront of bovine genetics.
Flagship products such as Donna and Viatina-19 are rare in Brazil, which has more than 230 million cows, according to the USDA. This is the largest population of farmed animals for meat in the world, and that’s problematic; Large tracts of Amazon rainforest have been cleared to create pastures, releasing the carbon stored in the trees. And cows spit methane, which is much worse for the climate.
Genetic innovations that lower the slaughter age of cows are useful, if limited, tactics for reducing warming. The simplest and most effective measures are to plant more grass for grazing and move cattle from one pasture to another, said Beto Veríssimo, an agronomist and co-founder. from an environmental nonprofit called Imazon.
Meanwhile, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is running to open new markets. Last month he met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, a maker of premium marbled Wagyu beef; He suggested to his counterpart to flavor Brazilian meat and to a believer.
“Please,” he said, addressing his vice president at the event, “take Prime Minister Fumio to eat steak at a restaurant in Sao Paulo so that next week our meat will start rising. “
Next to the Elo auction, in Raça, is the laboratory of the company Geneal Animal Genetics and Biotechnology. In a small pen, a cloned calf had recently been lying in the sun, still too unsure of its newborn legs to stand. Another, born via caesarean section 20 minutes earlier, leaning against the back wall of a cubicle, restless about this strange new world. The Viatina-19 clones are expected to be delivered in a few months, said Geneal’s advertising director, Paulo Cerantola.
Some breeders would not need a giant herd of their clones. Maintenance-intensive cows like Viatina-19 don’t succeed on a giant advertising scale because they can’t satisfy their desires to be able to do it with grass alone, P. J. said. Budler, director of foreign advertising at Trans Ova Genetics, an Iowa-based company focused on the bovine gene pool.
“Because of the environment and resources that would be needed to raise a cow like (Viatina-19), it fits the mold perfectly, but it’s not the answer for each and every farm animal around the world,” Budler said.
Viatina-19’s owner, Pereira, said she receives a special remedy to stimulate egg production, but she would thrive if she were taken to pasture, where almost all of her elite farm animals feed.
Meanwhile, Viatina-19 is pregnant for the first time and Pereira is an expansion; his oocytes have been sold to Bolivian buyers and he needs to export to the United Arab Emirates, India and the United States.
Her vet daughter, Martins, is even farther away.
“I hope it will form the basis of an even bigger animal in the future, decades from now,” he said.
Quotes were delayed by at least 15 minutes.
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