The prolonged drought and low productivity currently cause an alarming shortage of cows, which has put producers in eastern Yucatan in check.
In Livestock Associations and even at auctions, one of the reasons for conversation among members is the lack of cows and, in addition to this, the increase in calf prices.
Experts on the subject attribute that the are effects of a drought that affected the state and the agricultural sector for several months.
Today, the intervention of livestock groups and even the government is urgently needed to reactivate the activity and recover the livestock herd in the state.
Valentín Cárdenas Medina, doctor in Agricultural Sciences and teacher at the Tizimín Technological Institute, explains that they are constantly updated on agricultural issues so he can feel the critical situation that livestock farming is going through.
Cárdenas Medina, who is also a rancher, says that the activity has a background that is enhanced by the last drought, but it was already seen coming since there was a drought in 2016 where around 60 thousand cows to die, a similar situation that lived the state in 2008.
The researcher considers that two problems affect the activity: productivity and competitiveness, that is, on the one hand, there is what is produced in the state and, on the other, what is produced in comparison with other places.
He specifies that Yucatán occupies the 22nd place because although it is considered highly livestock-producing, it does not even have 2% of the total of what is produced in Mexico.
As he explains, the producers’ main product is calves, which thanks to their excellent quality are sent to other places.
However, there is a problem that plagues the State because, according to the Inegi census, in November 2023 there was a record of 388 thousand heads of cattle in total, which is assumed that 2/3 of that figure were cows.
Now, from what he has investigated with the livestock union, there are less than 100,000 cows in the state.
“That is to say that in the last five years, the livestock herd has decreased, so it is not strange that a calf is a highly demanded product, therefore, as the quantity decreases, demand increases and that is why its prices are high”, he states.
“As a rancher and researcher on the subject, I can say that this year we are experiencing a post-harvest drought crisis.”
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