Meet Viatina-19, the world's most expensive cow worth 21 million reais ($4.2 million)

Описание: (4 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Uberaba, Brazil - 26 April 2024
1. Various of cow named Viatina-19
2. Viatina-19 entering the cattle shed
3. Cattle inside the shed
4. Viatina-19 being cleaned
5. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Cleiton Borges, Viatina-19 veterinarian:
“In summary I would say that Viatina is a combo, she combines racial beauty, reproductive capacity, modern genealogy, all in a single animal.”
6. Ney Pereira owner of one-third of Viatina-19 walking after arriving at the farm in a helicopter
7. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Ney Pereira, 48-year-old, one of Viatina-19’s owner:
“I think it has added a lot to the genetic improvement that everyone is looking for, and that in the future we will certainly have better quality meat, an animal with more carcass yield because of the work we do with elite cattle.
We’re not slaughtering elite cattle, we’re breeding them. And at the end of the line, going to feed the whole world”
8. Viatina-19 being monitored by a camera
9. Various of farm worker showing a cellphone with images of Viatina-19 monitoring
10. Farm worker walking with Viatina-19
11. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Ney Pereira, 48-year-old one of Viatina-19’s owner:
“She can’t be limited to just Brazil. If she is the best in the world, not just her price, but I believe she is the world’s best, we need to share her around the world. And the commercial way to do that is to export its genetics, and we are going to seek that path going forward."
12. Various aerials of farm ++AERIAL SHOTS++ ++MUTE++

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Uberaba, Brazil - 27 April 2024
14. Various of Geneal lab (Geneal Animal Genetics and Biotechnology) employee working
15. Various of Geneal lab worker extracting DNA from cows’ tail hair and using it to create embryos
16. Various outdoor pen behind the Geneal lab where a cloned calf lay in the sunshine
STORYLINE:
Brazil has more cows than people – around 235 million of them — but one in particular is extraordinary.

Milk-white with a massive body, she is watched over by security cameras and an armed bodyguard.

The cow named Viatina-19 lives on a farm in Uberaba, Minas Gerais state, and is the most expensive ever sold at auction, according to Guinness World Records.

A 33% stake sold last year put her total value at 21 million reais ($4.1 million) — more than triple the prior recordholder, a Holstein heifer in Vermont in 1985.

She is the product of what one might call “moo-genics”: - This involves improving cattle stock by implanting bespoke embryos into surrogate cows known as “rental bellies”, selling top individuals at high-stakes auctions, while also cloning them.

Viatina-19 is also the embodiment of Brazil's cattle ambitions.

Breeders in this area are betting big that Viatina-19 and other behemoth bovines are key to boosting production in Brazil — already the world’s biggest beef exporter.

Viatina-19 is newly pregnant, and for her first time, which helps maintain hormone cycles, according to one of her owners, Ney Pereira.

He’s eyeing expansion for his four-legged fortune; already her oocytes sold in Bolivia and he wants to export to the United Arab Emirates, India and the US.

“She can’t be limited to just Brazil. If she is the best in the world – not just her price, but I believe she is the world’s best – we need to share her around the world,” he said. “The commercial way of doing that is exporting her genetics, and we will seek that path going forward.”

AP Video shot by Mario Lobao

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