“The 2021 and 2022 market was a market that hurt the sector, pandemic, very expensive grains. We reduced production by around 30% in these two years. Now in 2024, we are very excited, grains are falling, the price of chicken manages to remain at a very interesting level and the idea is that this year we will be able to start the second round of slaughter. This way, we will go from producing 70 thousand chickens to around 120 thousand chickens a day, just in our own slaughterhouse”, explains Eduardo Carneiro.
According to Eduardo, in addition to Bahia, the company has a similar complex in Pernambuco, with a farm, feed factory and slaughterhouse.
“Today, in Pernambuco, we are slaughtering 100,000 chickens per day, although there it is already done in two shifts. In addition to chicken, we have commercial eggs, which currently have a capacity of 500,000 eggs per day.”, he explains.
Expansion
Thinking about expanding production, the company managed by Eduardo will open 8 centers by the end of the year, with 6 warehouses measuring 160 meters in length and capable of housing 34 thousand chickens.
The expansion of the farm in Bahia has 48 warehouses, with the capacity to house approximately 1 million and 600 thousand chickens.
Twelve should come into operation at the beginning of the second semester. In total, the complex with 178 warehouses will house around 5 million and 300 thousand chickens.
Currently, the complex in Bahia employs 1,500 people and with the increase of a second slaughter shift. According to the company, between 300 and 400 jobs will be created.
Poultry farming in Bahia
The vast majority of the sector’s agribusinesses are in the Recôncavo region of Bahia, approximately 130 km from the capital, Salvador.
According to the Bahian Poultry Association (Aba), the sector is responsible for 15 thousand direct jobs in the state.
A survey by the Bahia State Agricultural Defense Agency (Adab), released in January, showed that in the last 10 years, poultry farming in Bahia grew 31% compared to the national average, which was 18%.
According to the most recent Municipal Livestock Survey (PPM), by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Bahia has the eighth largest herd of chickens in Brazil, with more than 49,658,064 million heads.
According to Kesley Jordana, president of the Bahian Poultry Association (Aba), despite eighth place in the national ranking, poultry farming has grown in the state.
One of the reasons, according to her, is the strengthening of government inspection bodies that certify the quality of the product.
“One of the explanations I can give for this growth in poultry farming is precisely the security that government agencies are bringing to the product, so, Adab, Mapa, they are increasingly following us and, in this case, inspecting the quality product that we are delivering. In 2007, we only had three slaughterhouses here in the state of Bahia. Today we are talking about 12 refrigerators in full operation. So”, explains the president of Aba.
According to quarterly IBGE surveys, in 2023, 128,595,481 chickens were slaughtered in the state.
The number is around 7% lower than the record in 2022, which was 138,563,619 million.
On the other hand, there was a record in egg production with 82 million and 404 thousand dozen, the highest quantity in 22 years.
Challenges
Among the sector’s challenges, the biggest currently is the lack of qualified labor. Kesley Jordana says that family farming adds to the sector, but that it still needs support for qualifications.
For the businessman, Eduardo Carneiro, this has been the biggest deficiency in the sector: “This has been the biggest shortcoming of the poultry industry as a whole, if not as a national industry as a whole, labor”, he reports.
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Tags: Investments expand poultry production Bahia
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