Beef Cattle: Origin and Distribution | Livestock | Economic Geography

In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Origin of Beef Cattle 2. Distribution of Beef Cattle 3. Problems of Cattle Rearing in the Tropics.

Origin of Beef Cattle:

The Aberdeen Angus originated in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It has a smooth black body, small horns, and a heavy carcass of high-quality meat. It grows fast and is a prodigious feeder, but is capable of adapting itself to a great variety of physical and climatic conditions.

As a result, it has been imported into all the main cat­tle lands for beef production or for cross-breeding with local stock. It was first imported into the U.S.A. in 1850 and now a new breed, the Red Angus has be­come important in America.

The Hereford was first bred in the grassy plains of Herefordshire, England, but can thrive in harsh con­ditions in both temperate and the sub-tropical lati­tudes. It has a characteristic red coat, a white face and white spots in some parts of the body. It has short horns, but a cross-breed called the Polled Hereford, developed in the U.S.A. and Canada, is hornless. All the Herefords are excellent beef cattle.

The Shorthorn originated in north-east England, especially in the counties of Durham and Yorkshire and is probably the largest of the beef-cattle breeds. It is mainly red-brown in colour with darker and some white markings. The beef Shorthorn is a heavy feeder and yields much meat. It crosses readily with other breeds, e.g. the Milking Shorthorn and the Polled Shorthorn, are popular breeds in the Corn Belt of the U.S.A. and are excellent dual-purpose breeds.

The Galloway was first bred in the damp pastures of the hills and valleys of the Galloway district of south-west Scotland. It is similar to the Aberdeen Angus but more hardy and able to tolerate very cold conditions, a rugged topography and rough pastures. It is, however, less extensively bred outside Britain.

The Devon breed is reddish in colour. It originated in Devonshire, one of the warmer parts of south-west­ern England. The North Devon is bred for beef or dual-purpose production, while the South Devon is more suited for milking. Devon cattle do better than other temperate breeds in the sunny sub-tropics and the tropics.

The Highland breed comes from the rugged Scottish Highlands and is capable of good beef production but yields little milk. It has shaggy long hair and protrud­ing horns and is not much used outside the highland districts.

Apart from the British beef cattle, the most im­portant types include the Charollais, bred in France. It has a creamy body, is homed and is valuable be­cause of its large size and quick maturity. It is a good beef or dual-purpose breed. The Limousin and Armoricain are other major French breeds.

The trop­ical Zebu breed has a small bony body, a big hump above the shoulders and has much loose hanging skin under its throat. It has long ears and a reddish or whitish body. Many minor types have been bred in different parts of Asia and Africa. When given little attention, as is usually the case, it is a lean cattle, gives little meat and even less milk but is highly re­sistant to heat and diseases.

If properly fed and cared for, it can yield a fair quantity of milk. When crossed with the temperate breeds, new strains can be pro­duced with useful characteristics. Extensive cross­breeding of the Zebu for many generations, as has been done especially in the tropical and sub-tropical parts of the Southern Continents, in Mexico and the Gulf States of the U.S.A., has produced many important breeds capable of good beef and milk production, e.g. the Brahman, Santa Gertrudis, Brangus and the Charbray.

They hold great promise for the commer­cialization of livestock farming in the savanna lands of Africa, South America, India and Pakistan. Another important cattle type is the water buffalo, used in the tropics and sub-tropics mainly as a draught animal, but also for meat in some cases.

Distribution of Beef Cattle:

Beef cattle are much more widely distributed than dairy cattle because they are more hardy and can tolerate a wider range of physical and climatic condi­tions. They can survive on sparse pasturage, e.g. in western U.S.A., and on the coarse grass of the tropics.

Beef-cattle ranching was, in fact, the main means of livelihood for the settlers who opened up interior North America, the empty lands of the Southern Con­tinents and many parts of the African and South Ame­rican savannas.

Its contribution to the economic de­velopment of these regions is still far greater than that of other agricultural activities. Some countries like Ar­gentina, Australia and New Zealand have long been leading beef exporters. With the introduction of re­frigeration in the 1880s, the international trade in beef expanded rapidly. In recent years, the trade has been largely in chilled and frozen beef.

Chilled meat is transported in cold-storage chambers at a tempera­ture just below freezing point, about —2 to — 1°C (28—30°F), so that it arrives in the consuming coun­tries in fresh state. Much Argentinian beef leaves Buenos Aires for Western Europe as chilled meat. Frozen beef is kept at very low temperatures of be­tween — 12°C and -9°C (10°F and 15°F) because of the longer distance and duration involved in trans­portation.

The beef exported from Sydney or Welling­ton to Europe is mainly frozen because it has to travel twice or thrice as far as chilled beef sent from Buenos Aires to Europe. Frozen meat has to be melted at the point of consumption, and much of the natural juice and flavour is lost, which is not the case with chilled meat.

There is a considerable trade in corned beef (canned, cooked meat), beef extracts, ox-tongues and other prepared and cooked canned beef products. The original trade in jerked or salted beef has now disap­peared except under very special circumstances.

Western Europe, the home of many of the most useful and widespread cattle breeds, has no beef for export and is a major importer. Britain and other European countries, do, however, export live pedigree stock for cross-breeding purposes. The outstanding beef cattle breeds are described below. Many of these originated in Britain.

Problems of Cattle Rearing in the Tropics:

Temperate regions are the traditional areas of com­mercial cattle rearing, but many cattle are also kept in the tropical grasslands or savannas of Africa, South America and Australia. With a few excep­tions, e.g. in southern Africa, and northern Aus­tralia, cattle rearing in these regions is generally poorly developed and financial returns are poor. What are the reasons for this? And can any of the problems of the savannas be overcome?

1. Climate and Vegetation:

Though the savanna lands receive a moderate to heavy rainfall of between 760 and 1,525 mm (30 and 60 inches), twice as much as the temperate grasslands, the rain is very unevenly distributed. The rainy season is short, and under tropical conditions of high tem­perature, rapid evaporation and much run-off, the water does not have lasting value and the vegeta­tion is often poor.

In the Llanos of Venezuela the seasonal pattern is very marked. Areas are often flooded and cattle are drowned or cut off from food supplies in the wet season, while during the long, dry season the grass withers so that the cattle are short of both food and water. The Sahelian droughts of the mid-1970s in West Africa severely affected cattle-farming in the region.

The natural vegetation of the savannas is of the parkland type, with tall, coarse grass, and scattered trees. Many of the thorny xerophytic shrubs, which are adapted to withstand the dry season in the sa­vannas or are found on the savanna-desert margins, are not palatable to livestock.

To overcome these problems, there is a need for more projects to dam streams, control water sup­plies and conserve water which falls in the rainy season for use in the dry season. This has been done successfully in some parts of the Venezuelan Llanos, e.g. at Calaboso, and has greatly improved cattle farming in the region. Not only is water made available throughout the year, but high quality irrigated pastures are available to supplement poor pastures, and nutritious fodder crops can be raised.

2. Cattle Breeds:

High quality temperate cattle breeds cannot usually be kept in tropical regions because they have no built-in resistance to certain tropical diseases. Yet the Zebu cattle, even when commercially raised, do not yield good beef and attempts to improve the stock have improved the meat quality only slightly.

The best solution is the use of cross-bred cattle which combine the hardiness of Zebu stock with the qualities of tem­perate cattle breeds. However, in some regions, such as West Africa, cross-breeds do not do well. The best way to increase quality would be by selective breeding of local cattle.

3. Diseases:

Despite some degree of built-in resistance to disease, cattle in the tropics are a prey to a wide variety of pests and diseases which makes cattle farming difficult. In some years locusts may swarm and eat every scrap of green vegetation, depriving the cattle of pasture. Diseases such as anthrax, rinderpest, cattle fever and mouth diseases may affect the cattle, or parasitic ticks may be a problem.

The presence of tsetse flies, which carry the disease trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness to men and the nagana disease to cattle has tradition­ally limited the keeping of livestock in many parts of Africa, for the diseases are often fatal if not treated early. The tsetse fly has now been brought under control with the use of pesticides in many parts of Africa.

Other diseases could be checked by better veterinary services and by quick action in the case of diseased stock to prevent the spread of diseases. Better education for cattle farmers to enable them to spot diseases quickly would also help in this respect.

4. Traditional Farming Practices: 

Many African groups, such as the Fulani of West Africa, have not developed the techniques of mod­ern cattle rearing and practise nomadic herding. This is partly a response to difficult physical con­ditions and partly because it is a traditional way of life. The better pastures are often overgrazed, and thus deteriorate, leading to soil erosion and soil impoverishment.

Savanna areas are often over­stocked because the cattle are regarded as a form of wealth or status. Thus the Fulani for instance keep their cattle mainly for milk and as beasts of burden, occasionally using some for meat. They practise no selective breeding, keep as many cat­tle as possible and sell animals only when they need ready cash or when particular animals are no longer of use.

Most governments are trying hard to over­come this attitude and turn the subsistence cattle economy into a more commercial one which will benefit not only the herders but other sections of the population as well. Education and training are the only ways to achieve this transformation, and these are provided, e.g. in Kenya, where the Masai herders are being encouraged to settle and farm cattle more intensively. But traditional pastoralists despise settled life and the cultivation of crops and resent the need to diminish their herds.

5. Capital for Development:

In many areas capital for the development of modern com­mercial ranching, the building of storage reservoirs, or the provision of veterinary and training services, is lacking.

Where financial resources have been available, e.g. in areas where European settlers have taken to ranching as in northern Australia or South Africa, commercial cattle rearing has been successfully es­tablished. In parts of South America, too, some attention has been given to improving the rearing of cattle, but much of the interior is roo remote, e.g. in central Brazil, to be effectively developed.

In many parts of Africa, the newly independent states cannot afford to develop all sections of their economies equally quickly. There is a need to develop industries, communications, and settled agriculture as well as improving the practices of cattle farmers.

Other sections of the community in many African countries have, moreover, been far more responsive to change and improvement than the cattle farmers with their stubborn adherence to traditional ideas, and this has slowed down the development of cattle ranching on a commercial basis.