Modern economic POTENTIAL OF UKRAINE

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Livestock raising

The livestock industry in Ukraine is less successful than farming, with profitability in this sector much lower than in raising crops. As a result, the size of herds has been declining steadily in the country for a number of years. This trend has leveled recently, and in some cases reversed. However, the total figures show that the cattle herd dropped 3.6% in 2005.

Other animal populations are rising. In 2005, the number of pigs grew significantly for the first time in a number of years. At the beginning of 2006, 6.94 mn heads were recorded, a 7.3% y-o-y increase in the pig population. Also, there is a clear tendency in Ukraine to in-crease poultry meat production. Naturally, this has resulted in a rise in poultry stock. The number of poultry increased by almost 32% in all categories over the last six years.

It should also be stated that previously individual farms increased the volume of herd size, while commercial farms curtailed it. The situation changed in 2005. Overall herd size increased by 22.3% over 2004, specifically with a 25.5% rise in pig numbers and 39.7% for poultry. Meanwhile, cattle still decreased by 1.4%. In general, lion’s share of Ukraine’s cattle raising production is concentrated in personal smallholdings. As of beginning of 2006, indi-viduals maintained 63% of cattle and pigs, 85% of sheep and goats, and 60% of all poultry species.

There are not a lot of agricultural farms able to produce large volumes of livestock in Ukraine. The largest percentage (60%) of farms had up to 200 heads of cattle according to 2004 numbers. 20.3% of farms possessed from 200 to 500 heads, 18.1% - from 500 to 2,000 heads, and 1.6% - more than 2,000 heads. The majority of companies maintained less than 200 pigs (74.3%) and up to 300 heads of sheep and goats (83.4%). 55.6% of farms keep up to 500 heads of poultry, 6.2% - from 500 to 1,000 heads of poultry, 19.9% from 1,000 to 5,000, and 18.3% maintained more than 5,000 heads of poultry.

Output of main kinds of livestock and poultry in 2000-2005 (as of the end of the year, all economies, ths. heads)

Despite the curtailment in livestock numbers, volumes of cattle raising output have augmented over the last years. This points to a productivity increase in the cattle raising indus-try of the state. Specifically, the volume of cattle raising in 2005 increased y-o-y by 4.4%, in-cluding by 16.1% in commercial farms and negative 0.5% in personal farms. However, it should be mentioned that a significant price growth for cattle raising output in 2005 has driven the increase of this index to a great extent.

The share of small personal farms has made up more than 70% of the total livestock output volume over the last several years. The figure reaches 88-98% for the western part of Ukraine, where practically all output is produced by individual farms. Still, production vol-umes are trending upwards. Sales volumes of livestock for slaughter rose by 10.8% in 2005 versus 2004, the production of milk – by 1.8%, and eggs – by 16.4%. In regards to livestock and poultry for slaughter, sales of poultry totaled 50%, cattle – 31.5%, and pigs – 17.9%. Pro-duction of meat and milk in personal farms dropped by 7.8% and 0.3% respectively in 2005.

The significant curtailment in cattle stock is not reflected in a decrease in milk produc-tion. On the contrary, agricultural farms have even slightly increased this figure through a growth in milk yield per cow. For example, milk yield rose by 16.4% in 2005 and constituted 3,074 kg. Average milk yield in individual farms ran at 3,711 per cow.

Production of main livestock production output in 2000-2005

Subsidies and subventions play a positive role in the development of the stock raising industry in Ukraine. Agricultural producers received more than UAH 4.3 bn subsidies for maintaining livestock raising over 2000-2004. Subventions for youngsters of high-weight conditions constituted UAH 402.7 mn. Specifically, more than UAH 724 mn of subsidies and UAH 229 mn of subventions were paid in 2005.

The development of foreign trade in the output of livestock raising production process-ing significantly influences the expansion of production volumes. More than one third of all milk processed by Ukrainian industry is subject to export as different kinds of dairy output. A lot of meat and processed meat products are also exported.

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