This past week I found myself outside of Texas and in beautiful Puerto Rico.  For the past 15 years, Dr. Vanessa Sanchez has traveled from her ranch in Puerto Rico to the Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course to acquire information to improve the efficiency of her cattle and hay operation.  She owns Altamira Ranch, which is one of the largest and most progressive operations in Puerto Rico.  For the past few years she has been working with the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture to schedule a Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) training for ranchers on the island.

Dr. Ron Gill and I had the opportunity to travel to Puerto Rico last week to visit Altamira Ranch and conduct a BQA training.  We started out with a tour of Altamira, which is located on the southwest corner of the island near Cabo Rojo.  This area of the island is very similar to central Texas except that they have a beautiful view of the Caribbean Sea.  They have a really nice herd of Brangus-type and Charbray cows and utilize Brangus, Brahman and Charolais bulls.  Vanessa took us to lunch in a little fishing village and we experienced a wonderful restaurant.  She had plenty of great stories to tell about the history of the ranch that has been in the family for several generations.

The beef cattle production system on the island is quite different from the U.S. because they rely almost exclusively on forages.  There is very little grain supplementation utilized because it is very expensive.  Cattle are also finished on grass rather than grain, which extends the age at harvest to about 30 months.  The system is different, but sustainability and profitability are the goals of ranchers just like in the U.S.

We spent one day in the classroom and the second day demonstrating proper cattle processing, low stress cattle handling and cattle selection.  Beef Quality Assurance focuses on beef safety and beef quality and the ranchers there really appreciated the information we presented to them.  They were a great group to work with and it was very interesting to learn about their beef cattle production system.

My wife and son also had the opportunity to travel with us and it was a really great family experience.  The last few days on the trip I took some vacation time and we visited Old San Juan, which is on the eastern side of the island.  The city was beautiful and full of history and shopping.  We had the opportunity to tour two of the old forts in the city, which were amazing.

The agriculture side of Puerto Rico was fascinating to me and the oceans and cities were beautiful.  It was a great trip and I hope to have the opportunity to return soon.  If you have never visited, I encourage you to do so.

 

 

 

Jason Cleere

Texas AgriLife Extension Beef Cattle Specialist

Texas A&M University System

http://www.bqa.org/

http://www.texasbeefquality.com/