Determinantes econômicos da sanidade bovina / Economic determinants of bovine health

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

The bovine livestock is one of the most important sectors of Brazilian agribusiness. However, Brazilian herds health - key to the activity is still an issue rarely studied in economic terms. This way, the present study tried to identify the major determinants of the use of preventive measures and its expenses. Thus, the work was divided into two parts. At first it was used official data from the National Program for Control and Eradication of Bovine Brucellosis and Tuberculosis (PNCEBT), the number of animals vaccinated against brucellosis and tuberculosis tests. A preliminary analysis was performed trying to identify spatial patterns (clusters) of adoption of these measures. In both series, the results showed high variability in the use of these measures among the states. For tuberculosis tests, the major clusters found were the following: a low-use one, located mainly in the states of the northern region by 2004 to 2006, and one of high use in the states of Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará in 2006. The first cluster was attributed to poor organization of animal health inspection services in those states. The second is attributed to the necessity of the examination for the purchase of animals financed by the National Program of Support for Family Agriculture (PRONAF). For the number of vaccinated animals against brucellosis the main clusters found were: high-use, in the states of the Center-west region from 2004 to 2006, and low use in the states of Ceará, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Pernambuco, mainly between 2004 and 2006. The first cluster was attributed to the fact that the practice of vaccination is already integrated to the management of the region. Besides that, there is the necessity of proof of vaccination in the properties that need to issue the Guide for Animal Transit (GTA) to send animals to slaughter. The second cluster is related to the poor structuring of animal health inspection services mainly in the northern and northeast. Then it was tried to identify the determinants of these measures. For this reason, a Panel Tobit model was used. The main results indicate that the effective beginning PNCEBT in 2004, significantly stimulated the increase of the measures. It was observed that vaccination is not influenced by the prices paid both for meat and for milk, but those affected positively the number of tuberculosis tests. The variable production of meat per square km also showed increasing practice with the increase of production. Variables related to federal government transfer, by agreement, to states and the exports of meat or milk were not significant. It was concluded that the PNCEBT has shown good results although there is a need for restructuring of animal health inspection services especially in the northern and northeast regions in order to make easier better sanitary education and retraining of health professionals involved in the livestock production. Besides, economic incentives to producers to stimulate the increase in preventive practices studied must be planed. In the second part, data from interviews with 861 milk producers from Minas Gerais was used. It was intended to identify the characteristics of production systems that lead to greater spending on prevention of animal diseases. Furthermore, it was tried to verify the existence of the relationship between spending on prevention and treatment. In order to do that, the methodology used was the Three-Stages Least Squares which allows considering the expected endogeneity among the spendings studied. The results indicated that spending on treatment increases with the increasing in the percentage of milking cows, production per area and expenses with employees. Expenses on prevention increase with the production per area, expenses with the labor and minerals, producers age, used as a proxy for experience, and with the use of family labor. Additionally, properties visited by a technician more than six times a year, have higher expenses on treatment, but less expenses on prevention. The association between expenses was contrary to the expectated, showing that when spending on prevention is increased, the treatment expenses also get higher. Thus, we concluded that the producers have a reactive and not proactive attitude regarding bovine health. Furthermore, less intensive producers, on average, spend less on bovine health. Finally, it was suggested that measures of sanitary education both for producers and the technicians can bring greater benefits to society.

ASSUNTO(S)

tobit economia agraria gastos bovine health sanidade bovina clusters expenditures panel data tobit dados em painel clusters

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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