Viabilidade econômica da produção de suínos com alojamento individual ou coletivo de matrizes gestantes

Abstract

Most Brazilian pig farms use the housing model in individual cages for pregnant females, which causes several animal welfare problems. Collective pens, on the other hand, provide improvements in the living conditions of pregnant females, but can have worrying effects on reproductive parameters. Following the world trend, Brazil is in the process of banning individual cages for pregnant sows, with IN 113/2020. However, it is necessary to investigate the economic effects of the new characteristics established for the installations, as they incur greater investments and may lead to changes in reproductive performance. The objectives of this work were to calculate the effect of the type of housing of pregnant sows (collective pens or individual pens) on the economic viability of pig production systems. In addition, the sensitivity of the type of system (weaned or barley production) was investigated. Based on previous surveys of characteristics of the systems and production costs of pigs in São Paulo, economic indicators were calculated for four scenarios. Such scenarios encompassed two types of production systems (weaned and fattened piglet production), each with two possibilities for housing pregnant sows (collective pens or individual pens). The economic indicators used were: i) gross margin, ii) net margin, iii) profit, iv) breakeven point, v) total factor productivity, and vi) rate of return. Based on the results, the impact of the housing system was considered, given the variation in the type of production. The evaluated project had significant losses in both production systems, with different types of housing (individual cages and collective pens). The gross and net margin in the weaned production system were also negative, totaling a weekly loss of -R$ 200,644.60. A sensitivity analysis revealed that farms producing barley face more significant impacts compared to farms producing weaned. Thus, changes in breeding stock installation models according to IN 113/2020 resulted in negative impacts on the economic viability of pig production systems, both in barley and weaned breeding.