A produção de leite em Itaqui – uma pesquisa exploratória

Abstract

Brazil is responsible for about 7% of milk produced in the world and is the fifth largest producer in the world. Minas Gerais is the main producing state, with 27.10% of national production, followed by the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, Goiás, Santa Catarina, São Paulo and Bahia, all with annual average production of over one billion liters. The work was carried out in the municipality of Itaqui, which in 2017 had a population of 38,159 inhabitants, of which 33,314 people live in the urban area, and 4,848 live in the rural area. Visits were made to formal and informal milk producers in Itaqui-RS, from their location with key informants (city hall and state veterinary inspectorate); These visits will be conducted semi-structured interviews, aiming to collect information on production, herd feeding, marketing mode, daily production difficulties and others that arose in dialogue with respondents. Informal milk production in Itaqui, according to the survey, is characterized by producers who have their farms around the city, among the interviewees all have another fixed income, three of them retired, one metallurgical worker and another municipal civil servant. When asked if they had ever thought of delivering to the industry the two largest producers replied yes but the very low price paid by the industry would not compensate for the activity. In the study on raw milk sold informally in the city of Itaqui-RS it was found that 100% of the samples had at least one quality parameter in disagreement with the standards established by the legislation. It was observed in the survey that among the 5 respondents, 3 of them the producers designated as producer 3, producer 4, and producer 5, were already older and had their pensions as another source of income, but those of older age also had a system less suitable production.Producers 1 and 2, on the other hand, have a production method that is closer to that recommended and practiced on the properties they sell to industry. It was concluded with the research that the dairy farmers who sell their product informally in Itaqui, face difficulties to stay in the activity, mainly for the lack of support of the public power because the activity is irregular, and in the next years the tendency is to reduce producers in this type of activity.