Cattle sector and dairy chain developments in Ukraine

摘要

Due to the Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), there is need to expand into new markets and to increase the quality of meat and dairy products. In this paper, the major and most important tendencies, which may influence the competitiveness of the dairy chain in Ukraine are summarised. The rapid decrease in livestock numbers and the restructuring of the livestock production sector, which took place for the last 17 years, had objective reasons. While big farms were trying to getrid of loss-generating or low-profit activities, rural residents were maintaining relatively stable numbers of cattle, for the purpose of maintaining or improving living standards. As a result, the number of cattle is increasing within so called individual households. The individual households and small family farms are also an important supplier of meat and dairy products to the population and to the processing industry. The cattle population decreased in the two last years by 6% and 11%, respectivelycompared to corresponding period of the previous year. The most important trend in milk production by agricultural enterprises is the profitability of large farm enterprises, with on average more than 500 cows. This trend encourages companies, which already operate effectively, to further increase their scale of production. The greatest herd increases occurred in companies with more than 1000 cows. Across the whole dairy chain there are many weaknesses, starting with the prevalence of households' in thetotal raw milk supply and the low quality of this milk. There is also a pronounced seasonal pattern of raw milk production, a lack of investment in dairy farming, and underdeveloped logistics or infrastructure for milk collection, storage and distribution. This paper presents the official statistics, statements by sector players in the course of interviews and the results of recent empirical studies.