Beef cattle isn’t the first thing to come to mind when one mentions a farmer from Colombia, but Ricardo Gaitan McAllister made the trip to the NSW Beef Spectacular and Trade Expo at Dubbo last week to search for new beef genetics.
He and his wife, Andrea, live in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, and operate the company Sabana Azul, which translates to Blue Savannah, and includes two farms.
One farm, “El Tablon”, is a 200-hectare dairy, flower and beef operation on the Bogota savannah 2640 metres above sea level (asl).
The other farm, “Aguarregada”, which means flowing water, is a 100ha beef finishing farm located 1800m asl on the slopes of the Andes Mountains.
Water is in abundance, with streams spilling off the mountains and flowing from the top to the bottom of the farm, Mr McAllister said.
While most Colombian beef is grown at 1400m asl and lower, they said their Brahmans thrived on “Aguarregada”, where they run three to four head a hectare.
Mr McAllister said they had wet and dry seasons, similar to northern Australia, and with their long day lengths – they are situated almost on the equator – they had excellent growing conditions for pasture.
Their pastures are a mix of kikuyu, rye grass and natives, and up on the Bogota savannah he said pastures were about 90 per cent kikuyu.
The main operation there (on “El Tablon”) was their 250-head Holstein and Jersey dairy herd, and using a disc seeder, the pastures were drilled with three different varieties of rye grass – two perennial and one annual.
“That’s one of the most popular mixes on the savannah,” he said.
To allow the rye grass to establish they would spray the kikuyu with a low rate of glyphosate to dampen its vigour and allow the sown species to emerge through it.
For nitrogen they would sow a plant called vicia, a dicot similar to clover used as a rotation crop and good for milk production, he said.
Their dairy herd was 60 per cent Holstein and 40pc Jersey.
“It’s a very good mix because the Holsteins give you a lot of volume and the Jerseys a lot of quality,” Mr McAllister said.
His cows produce an average of 18 litres a day and his herd is much bigger than the average 45 to 50 head most Colombian dairies run.
They had also introduced Angus and Limousin bulls to their dairy cows to breed crossbred calves from the poorer end of their herd, or to cows at the end of their productive life.
These calves, like their Brahmans, were sold to the local butcher market.
On their beef property there were more pasture options, with tropical species such as elephant grass, king grass, star grass, and the predominant species, brachiaria, making up much of the grazing.
He said these were all highly productive species.
It’s on these pastures they grazed their 150-head Brahman herd, all of which were bought in.
The steers arrive at “Aguarrega-da” weighing about 250kg and are grown to 450kg when they are sold privately to local butchers.
The standard prices 12 months ago for Colombian cattle was about 3400 pesos a kilogram (live), which was the equivalent of about A$1.85/kg.
However, prices there have dropped because sales to their main export market, Venezuela, have ceased as the borders for beef have been closed.
“Now all these cattle are sold internally,” he said.
The only other export market they had of any significance was Ecuador, but this dealt only in small volumes.
As a result, their cattle prices had dropped to the equivalent of about A$1.60.
Unlike Australia, they had a population of 40 million on a smaller area and it was normal for people to consume beef twice a day, he said.