Day 4304: $4,000,000 Cow, and Flashback.

      

 

"Conflict": junk mail collage.

 

  

Want music?

 

    

Click : Lionel Richie, Stuck On You.

 

 

 

2GN2S

The World’s Most Expensive Cow

 

A stockman shows off the Nelore cow known as Viatina-19 at a farm in Uberaba, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Friday, April 26, 2024. Viatina-19 is the product of years of efforts to raise meatier cows, and is the most expensive cow ever sold at auction.

UBERABA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil has hundreds of millions of cows, but one in particular is extraordinary. Her massive, snow-white body is watched over by security cameras, a veterinarian and an armed guard.

Worth $4 million, Viatina-19 FIV Mara Movéis is the most expensive cow ever sold at auction, according to Guinness World Records. That’s three times more than the last recordholder’s price. And — at 1,100 kilograms (more than 2,400 pounds) — she’s twice as heavy as an average adult of her breed.

A stockman watches over the Nelore cow known as Viatina-19 at a farm in Uberaba, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Friday, April 26, 2024

Climate scientists agree that people need to consume less beef, the largest agricultural source of greenhouse gasses and a driver of Amazon deforestation. But the cattle industry is a major source of Brazilian economic development and the government is striving to conquer new export markets. The world’s top beef exporter wants everyone, everywhere to eat its beef.

The embodiment of Brazil’s cattle ambitions is Viatina-19, the product of years of efforts to raise meatier cows. The country’s prizewinners are sold at high-stakes auctions — so high that wealthy ranchers share ownership. They extract the eggs and semen from champion animals, create embryos and implant them in surrogate cows that they hope will produce the next magnificent specimens.

A commodities boom in the 2000s turbocharged Brazilian agriculture, especially with a rising China buying soy and beef. Today, agriculture’s influence extends to Brazil’s Congress and the national consciousness. Country music is booming. TV viewers can watch the massive Globo network’s seven-year campaign exalting the sector. The Cow Channel features live auctions. And Brazil, along with the U.S., is at the forefront of cattle genetics; it does more in-vitro fertilizations than any country in the world, said João Henrique Moreira Viana, genetic resources and biotechnology researcher at the government’s agricultural research corporation. Viatina-19 won award after award — including “Miss South America” at the Fort Worth, Texas-based “Champion of the World” competition, a bovine version of Miss Universe where cows and bulls from different countries square off. But at 3 years old she hadn’t yet proven that her egg cells, when fertilized and implanted in a surrogate cow, would reliably produce offspring bearing her champion characteristics, said Pereira, an internet executive who moved into elite cow breeding. He needed “a grand matriarch."

Such cows cost so much that people buy and sell partial ownership, and Pereira’s company Napemo Agriculture paid several million reais (almost $800,000) in a 2022 auction for a 50% stake in Viatina-19. Another rancher kept the other half, so the two would jointly make important decisions and split revenues.

Bidders attend an Elo de Raca auction preview at the ExpoZebu in Uberaba, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, Saturday, April 27, 2024. The Elo de Raça is the most prestigious auction at the annual ExpoZeb, which bills itself as the world’s biggest Zebu fair.

As the auctioneer banged his gavel, the speakers blasted Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds.” For Pereira, a lifelong Elvis fanatic, it was a sign.

For entire article and a 1+ minute video, here

 

A funny or amusing flashback from June 2, 2014, 

Day 676: Sunday at WW's

I am still on Grandma duty here on the hill.
Just the 4 grand-dogs and me.

Pensive Bella

"Leave me alone" Roxie

Chloe & Laker

The super family, friends and Australian rock stars 
are all having fun at the river.
Unaware they are missing my stimulating company here!

 

 

 

  

 

A 4+ minute video, The wing case,  here

 

 

 

  

 

Just because ...

  

White Eagle

 

  

 

Saturday's Smiles ...