Dairy farming

Development of dairy farming at Corporation “Agro-Soyuz”

Eastern Europe has all prerequisites for profitable milk production. World experience shows that milk production could be reasonable and profitable business because there is an acute shortage of milk products while resources and potential of Ukrainian producers are not used at full capacity.

Milk production is a profitable business in Europe. In our country this business is unprofitable in spite of large market capacity, favorable climate, huge land resources and undersupply. What should we do to change existing stereotypes?

In 1996 specialists of Corporation “Agro-Soyuz” started the regeneration of dairy farming and created the model enterprise on the base of traditional collective farm. The idea of innovations based on world experience was realized in cattle complex.

They have made a long trip full of mistakes, practical experience and comprehension towards successful project deployment.

They have started from the reconstruction of old buildings, purchases of new equipment and machinery. That caused unreasonable expenses while new resource base was not able to bring comfort to cattle because of non-coordination resulted in milk yield affection. Characteristics of barn design such as height, illumination and ventilation didn’t correspond to operational process which was the basis for cattle productivity. This “sorrowful” way of mistakes however could be avoided by adoption of experience of strong and successful farms. To cover this way and to keep on going was possible only for few producers those who were willing to learn in spite of mistakes.

The next stage was imitation. Specialists from corporation gathered leading experience from the whole world. They expected that new technologies and developed resource and technical basis will create required backgrounds for high productivity of cattle assuring profitability of the farm. But they were wrong. They understood that technology, equipment or facility themselves are not able to guarantee the profitability of business. It seemed more important to understand the technologies and to be able to implement acquired knowledge.

They understood that imitation creates the risk of mistake imitation. This means that when you copy something, you should think and analyze first and only then take some actions.

That was the third period – period of reflection. That was the difficult point to reach but only now we are able to talk about important components of successful cattle breading project: logistics and economics, i.e. management organization. 70% of success depends on process management.

Our achievements

Implementation of world experience, study and analysis of dairy farming tendencies allowed our specialists to design, build and open the first stage of cattle breeding complex. It is designed for 5000 milking cows with the average milk yield of 10 000 liters per cow per year. Presently milk stock consists of 1500 heads.

Implementation of innovative technologies in dairy farming allowed us to reach following results:

• the average milk yield at model enterprise is 9 000 liters per cow per year
• the quality of milk corresponds to European standards
• model enterprise of Corporation became the participant of world leading dairy farm club – “Cream Club” and is a member of IFCN
• dairy stock of “Agro-Soyuz” is acknowledged as breeding farm for Holstein breed and basic farm for innovative technologies of Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine

Technological processes

Maximal realization of stock genetic potential at the lowest cost was possible because of milk production optimization which included the following:

• single functional system of fodder quality management
• mobilization of cow organism resources (free-stall housing, comfortable boxes, free access to water and fodder, optimal microclimate)
• synchronization of sexual cycle of cows and heifers (we developed and implemented stock health management preventive program)
• correct young stock raising

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Day schedule (schedule of cow’s ideal day)
Feeding	One meal (20-30 min.) — 2 kg of DM, 6-12 times per 24 hours
Water drinking	About 1,5 hours per day; 4,5 l of water per 1 l of milk
Milking	Not more than 2 hours per day, despite of the qty of milking
Interaction	Up to 1,5 hours with other animals
Treatment	Not more than 1,5 hours per 24 hours
Rest	12 hours per 24 hors; 90% of cows that are not eating or drinking must lay down while minimum 50% of cows must ruminate

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