In Ukraine, there will be two programs for fattening young cattle: state and through donor support

Today, on March 16, the Ukrainian Stock Breeders Association together with other agrarian organizations discussed the Business model for fattening young cattle purchased from private farms, which was prepared by the experts of the USAID Support for Agrarian and Rural Development Project.

Practical implementation of this model will save and use the potential of young cattle, which is born in personal households, family farms and small farms. Indeed, today about 70% of cows in Ukraine are kept in personal households.

The essence of the model is the concentration of young cattle on centralized feeding grounds, which can be created on the basis of agricultural cooperatives and enterprises.

After the analysis of all comments and proposals is completed, the final version will be formed, and the USAID Support for Agrarian and Rural Development Project will announce the competition.

Today, the specialists of the USAID Support for Agrarian and Rural Development Project presented a draft business model for fattening young cattle purchased from personal peasant farms, the implementation of which will be implemented through donor support. Its authorship belongs to the experts of the  Support for Agrarian and Rural Development Project: Yevhen Shatokhin (expert on the development of cattle raising and processing of beef products) and Serhii Slipchenko (a financial specialist in the field of agriculture).

Another, the state program for fattening young cattle in personal peasant farms, will be implemented this year at the expense of state funding, according to the adopted resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on February 7, 2018 No. 107 "On Approving the Procedure for Using Funds Provided in the State Budget to Support the Livestock Sector ".

The implementation of the government program in 2018 provides for a "subsidy for young cattle" in the state budget, which will be provided on an irretrievable basis to individuals for the content of cattle, identified and registered in accordance with the established procedure, who was born on the farms of individuals this year to a thirteen-month age. The maximum amount of funds that private farm can receive 2500 UAH for the head of the young cattle.

In 2017, the Ukrainian Stock Breeders Association has already developed and submitted to the leadership of the Ministry of Agrarian and Industrial Complex the Program on the Development of Livestock, which was also directed to the fattening of bull-calves. Also, this Program was addressed to the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Hroisman and the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv.

It is nice that the general idea of ​​the Livestock Development Program of the USBA was heard by the authorities, but unfortunately before the implementation of the Procedure for the use of funds, the Ukrainian Stock Breeders Association was not included, which almost certainly leads to practical difficulties in the implementation of the government program.

Unfortunately, the mechanism of the state subsidy for today is set out unreasonably and with shortcomings. One of them is that the subsidy will be provided only for youngsters born in 2018. In addition, concentrating the growing of young animals in the hands of OSG will become a problem, which will mean obtaining a heterogeneous population, in which potential international partners are not very interested. For the state and its economy, the lack of standardized cattle consignments will mean a low economic effect from government subsidies. Unlike the situation, if the fattening of young animals would be concentrated on centralized sites.

The idea of ​​the necessity of preparation of this model arose from the results of the Round Table "Development of meat production and exports in Ukraine", organized at the initiative of Ukrainian Stock Breeders Association, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine and the Office for Reform Support with the support of the USAID project "Support to Agrarian and Rural Development" July 2017.

During this event, producers raised the important problem of slaughtering bull-calves at an early age in the households of the population, and as a result, the decrease in the number of cattle, the loss of Ukraine's potential export goods and foreign exchange earnings, the penetration of meat from beef from young calves, which is harmful for consumption by the population .

In recent years, the production of cattle live weight is also in great demand in world markets (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan), especially Arab ones. The opening of the Turkish market will be already achievable for Ukraine, and the Livestock Association actively works on it. However, most households are unmotivated to fatten calves because of the loss of milk for their drinking and subsidies for housing and communal services.