Day 078 - 26 Jan 95 - Page 52
1 Lord Vesty. He says that the beef was bred on the natural
2 scrub plains of the States Minas, Goias and Mato Grosso.
3 He says they are fattened in the State of San Palo. What
4 does that mean? Is there some different process?
5 A. No. If you understand the livestock industry, there is
6 a system -----
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not go into this in great detail. Just
9 tell us in a sentence, if you can, what happens in the
10 first areas and then what happens in the second.
11 A. In the first area the cattle are bred. In the second
12 area they are brought to higher quality grass to fatten and
13 finish.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: Do they also have additional feed apart from
16 grass? Do they have grains or whatever?
17 A. No.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: Not in Brazil. It might be worth having a break.
20 I think we have actually finished with the balance sheet
21 beef, you will be pleased to know.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We will take our five minutes.
24
25 (Short Adjournment).
26
27 MS. STEEL: I actually have a couple more questions on this.
28 What age are the cattle when they are taken to the higher
29 quality grass to fatten and finish?
30 A. Store cattle, I can only answer that question in the
31 context of Britain.
32
33 Q. I was asking about Brazil really.
34 A. I would think it would be exactly the same. Stores
35 would be up to 12, 14 months, and they go on to fatten to
36 about two, two and a half years.
37
38 Q. So they would be around 12 to 14 months when they got
39 moved?
40 A. Yes.
41
42 Q. Have you still got yellow XI?
43 A. Volume 11.
44
45 Q. Can you turn to the tabs behind the sub-tab 5 -- sorry,
46 sub-tab 4, as it were, behind your statement which is at
47 tab 5.
48 A. Yes.
49
50 Q. This is the letter from Lord Vesty to you on 6th June
51 1983. In the fourth paragraph he says: "It is therefore
52 obvious that this export works is not involved with pasture
53 formation or cattle raising in the rainforest region of
54 Brazil and we would never find it economically feasible to
55 truck fat cattle 2,000 kilometres." It appears that Lord
56 Vesty thinks it is feasible to truck young cattle those
57 kinds of distances?
58 A. I am sure he does not. It would be even less likely.
59
60 Q. Why do you think he said just fat cattle?
