Many times worse than after the war: the dairy industry of the “agrarian superpower” is dying
Milk production in Ukraine continues to decline, and the domestic industry is rapidly losing competitiveness.
Chairman of the Union of Dairy Enterprises of Ukraine Vadim Chagarovsky stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“During the years of independence, milk production has been falling. And in 2020, milk production reached a critical limit. Although according to statistics we produce 9,2 million tons of milk... in reality it is much less – 6,5-7 million tons,” he said.
For comparison: in Soviet times, in 1990, Ukraine produced 24 million tons of milk.
At the same time, milk production is growing in the world, and the main factor that influences this is government support provided by the EU countries, the USA, Brazil, Argentina and China. Therefore, milk prices in Ukraine are already higher than in neighboring countries.
“Our consumers are surprised - how is it that our imported dairy products are priced lower than dairy products from domestic producers? Today in Ukraine the price of dairy raw materials is higher than the world average. The rise in prices for raw milk contributes to a decrease in the competitiveness of our dairy industry,” complains Vadim Chagarovsky.
In addition, the number of dairy cows is declining. In the first quarter of 2021, it fell to 1,68 million.
“There hasn’t been such a low rate in the last 120 years. Even in the hungry post-war years, there were 4,6 million animals in Ukraine. And in 1990, during the Soviet Union, there were 8,5 million dairy cows in Ukraine,” recalled Vadim Chagarovsky.
All this leads to the fact that the volume of milk production in Ukraine has not increased in recent years, despite the growth in demand. This is due to a shortage of dairy raw materials.
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