To become more profitable, one Ukrainian farmer has switched from growing corn and wheat to large-scale pig and dairy farming.
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When in 2013 Andriy Ivanenko became the owner of Shevchenko Agrofirm located in Chernihiv region, the farm was aging and poorly maintained. At first, the farmer was focused only on crop production. He grew grain crops on 8,400 acres. Then he started developing pig and dairy farming.
“We started with growing corn and wheat only. Then we switched to a large-scale reconstruction of pig farm. It started with a farm of 300 pigs. We continued to develop it, building up its capacity. Today we have a modern complex of 16,000 pigs and 1250 sows. We sell more than 500 pigs for slaughter weekly. We are currently the industry leader in our region.”
The development of the dairy business began in 2016. Today it is a modern farm for 2700 heads of cattle, including 1,100 heads of dairy herd.
Shevchenko Agrofirm is currently one of the top five dairy farms in Ukraine. Milk is supplied to large processing plants across the country.
“The cows are kept in new and reconstructed sheds. The dairy farm is run by 64 employees. The average daily milk yield per cow is 8.45 gallons with a fat content of 4% and a protein content of 3.5%. We have highly productive groups of cows with an average milk yield of up to 11.9 gallons per day.”
To reduce production costs, the company built a new feed mill with a capacity of 10 tons per hour and later equipped it with a pelletizing and premixing line. In-house feed production not only helps to save money, it also contributes to product quality. In the future, they also plan to increase the number of dairy cows to 1,500. The construction of another modern building for 400 cows has already begun.
That report was powered by Latifundist Media, with USAID support provided through Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities (AGRO) Activity implemented in Ukraine by Chemonics International. For more information, visit their website or follow them on social media.
