According to data provided by the National Statistics Office of Cuba (ONEI 2023Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información, 2023. Anuario estadístico de Cuba 2022 Agricultura, Ganadería, Silvicultura y Pesca. Available at: https://www.onei.gob.cu/anuario-estadistico-de-cuba-2022 .), it is evident that beef production in Cuba is below its historical levels and does not meet population needs. In this situation, the efficient management of soil resources and productive means in general is highly important. For this reason, in cattle fattening units, it is necessary to know the evolution of production over time and evaluate the impact of technological factors to determine the efficiency with which livestock activity is carried out in the company with the purpose of improving productivity (Oviedo and Rodríguez 2011Oviedo, W. & Rodríguez, G. 2011. Medición de la eficiencia técnica relativa de las fincas asociadas a Co unión en Guasca Cundinamarca. Revista MVZ Córdoba, 16(2): 2616-2627, ISSN: 1909-0544. http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=69322446020. ).
Productive efficiency will depend on various factors, which act independently or in a related manner. This term fundamentally refers to the relationship between inputs and what is produced (Barahona and Barahona 2023Barahona, P.U. & Barahona, M.D. 2023. Análisis de eficiencia productiva: Una comparación interdepartamental entre Facultades de la Universidad de Atacama. Revista Electrónica Educare, 27(2): 1-17, ISSN: 1409-4258. Available at: https://oaji.net/articles/2023/2279-1687234331.pdf. ). Consequently, organizations research on how to make proper use of raw materials to find possible savings in their use. That is to say, a productive unit is more efficient than the other if it manages to produce more meat or milk with the same amount of inputs.
Efficiency indicators are located in two large groups. In the first group, there are those related to reproduction, such as birth of calves and pregnancy percentage, among others. In the second group, there are those of productive efficiency (animal load, calving distribution, increase in live weight from birth to weaning and actual weaning weight, among others) that allow to advice on management measures or to discover causes for low production. Therefore, the objective of the study was to implement a computer system for the diagnosis of meat production based on efficiency indicators in each production scenario.
The computer system was developed by a multidisciplinary team from the Applied Biostatistics and Ruminants departments of the Institute of Animal Science (ICA). To calculate the economic indicators (initial inventory, final inventory, input and output), the prices issued by the Gaceta Oficial of the Republic of Cuba (2021)Gaceta Oficial de la República de Cuba extraordinaria. 2021. Núm. 31. Available at: http://economia.uniandes.edu.co/investigaciones_y_publicaciones/CEDE/Publicaciones/documentos_cede/2004/aplicacion_del_metodo_de_optimizacion_dea_en_la_evaluacion_de_la_eficiencia_tecnica_de_las_seccionales_de_la_fiscalia. were taken. The formula proposed by Bavera and Bocco (2001)Bavera, G. A. & Bocco, O. 2001. Cursos de Producción Bovina de Carne, FAV UNRC. was selected to calculate the stock efficiency of the cattle herd.
The computer application was designed in the NetBeans development environment, version 8.2. The program was programmed with an architecture divided into layers. The interface layer, managed by the JavaFx and SceneBuilder graphic library, where the components and buttons adjust to the size of the screen on which the computer system is running. The second layer has a service module (Balance_servise) that is responsible for data input and output functionalities.
DIAGNOSTICAR provides a pleasant visual appearance and has good functional quality. When starting the system, a welcome screen is displayed. To begin the diagnosis, you must click on the enter data button. When this action is performed, data entry window is displayed (figure 1), which contains the necessary fields in the center of the screen to perform the diagnosis of the cattle fattening unit.
The computer system (figure 1) allows the livestock user to make a production assessment of the unit in a given period. For this reason, it is mandatory to fill in the fields start date (inicio) and end date (fin). The rest of the fields are focused on knowing the existence of the animals in the unit by classification, among yearlings, young bulls and bulls in the period under study. With this data entry, the information is validated and the user is alerted about any error that was made (empty data, letters instead of numbers, anomalous data) in the process of completing the fields so system failures are avoided at the arrival, which ensures a greater degree of veracity of the provided results.
Once all mandatory data (*) are filled in, the diagnóstico button must be clicked to estimate the productive indicators that allow the analysis of the fattening unit (figure 2).
Total meat production, as well as production per surface or stock, allows the user to know the performance of the unit in the period under study. DIAGNOSTICAR has an indicator called stock efficiency, which offers a clear idea of the efficiency degree with which the unit works. This result is based on the relationship between inputs and the achieved production. That is, it is more efficient if with equal inputs (hectares and number of cows) more kilograms of beef are produced per hectare. By considering these fields, strategies can be drawn up to reach acceptable production levels in the livestock unit.
On this same screen, a tab with economic indicators (figure 2) is shown, obtained by the livestock unit. The results of productive efficiency allow to know whether the unit has favorable economic values. It also shows the monetary inventory in Cuban pesos (CUP) that makes it possible to know precisely the income and outputs of the production system. The tab offers the option to update beef prices to the system. This result, together with production indicators, will allow a complete diagnosis of the livestock unit. With DIAGNOSTICAR, managers will be able to make appropriate decisions, in order to improve the efficiency of beef production.
It is concluded that DIAGNOSTICAR computer system facilitates information on breeding processes in cattle fattening units. It allows a quick and precise interaction with the productive and economic data of the unit, which speeds up decision-making to draw up strategies that help achieve an efficient production in the livestock unit.