New dairy farms for 20 cows opening in Ukraine within USAID/Fintrac/Partnering for Innovation Project: ‘Development of family farms united in agricultural service cooperatives’
On the 25th of November, 2016 official opening of the first family farm for 20 cows in Reshetylivka raion of Poltava oblast, created within the USAID/Partnering for Innovation Project: Development of Family Farms United in Agricultural Service Cooperatives”, took place.
The event was visited by the representatives of USAID, ICF Community Wellbeing, Coop union “Hospodar”, Ministry of Food and Agrarian Policy, oblast, raion and village councils, dwellers of Sukhorabivka village and neighboring territories, as well as raion and oblast media. Press-conference and discussion regarding the development of cooperatives and family farms in Poltava Oblast facilitated by Viktor Teres.
The farm was built by Zhvanko family, which is a member of Agricultural Service Cooperative (ASC) Molochnyi Svitanok. Ruslan and Julia Zhvanko, are both native dwellers of Sukhorabivka village. However, several years they lived in the oblast center – Poltava. Three years ago they decided to come back to their roots. Ruslan has played an important role in the development of Molochnyi Svitanok ASC as a coop head. Seeing the positive effect of three small family farms for 5-8 cows, reconstructed in 2014-2015 by other villagers, and having an intention to expand their smallholder economy, the family thoroughly examined the Project terms and decided to build own farm. However, they decided to go another, more complicated way – to build farm for 20 cows from scratch. The construction works began the late fall of 2015 and lasted till November, 2016.
The family farm is equipped with modern equipment – automatic cow watering system, quality lighting and ventilation systems, automatic milking and the use of rubber mats for cows’ comfort, mini cooling tank for 650 l and laboratory equipment which allows to accept milk from other smallholders and reach milk quality of at least 1st-Grade.
As for now Zhvanko family has the milking herd of 10 cows not taking into account offsprings and plans to increase it very soon. The family, which already doubled its income, expects to get at least twice more after increasing the number of their milking herd up to 20 cows.
The day before, on the 24th of November in Denysivka village of Orzhytsia raion of Poltava Oblast a similar family farm for 20 cows of Serhienko and Shapovalenko families was opened.
It is planned that the family farms of 20 heads of cattle each with milk cooling tanks installed, created on the basis of ASC, will ensure stable production and supply of premium quality milk via ASC Molochnyi Svitanok. Due to better conditions of animal management, namely: automatic cow watering system, quality lighting and ventilation systems, automatic milking and the use of rubber mats for cows’ comfort and knowledge obtained from trainings, the productivity of the livestock of these farms will increase by at least 25%. These improvements will allow the family reduce the overall time spent working in the household even at a larger number of cattle and also improve working conditions for adult family members, both women and men. Due to larger production volumes of milk and better milk quality, the families will be able to increase their incomes considerably.
The opened farms are included into overall number of 42 family farms opened in Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Odesa Oblasts as of December, 1st, 2016 within the Project Milestone 7. Thus, total number of family farms, opened since the Project beginning, has reached 70.
By using a reliable channel for selling dairy products, a fair market price and the opportunity to improve skills and knowledge, the mentioned family farms created within the Project will become training platforms for new family farmers. They are great examples for other villagers and potential family farmers from neighboring raions how to manage farm in a proper and efficient way to ensure sustainable and profitable activity.
The project “Development of family farms united in agricultural service cooperatives” is being implemented since July, 2015 by ICF COMMUNITY WELLBEING in partnership with Danone Ukraine, NGO “Agricultural advisory service” and Union of agricultural service cooperatives “Hospodar”, cofunded by Danone Ecosystem Fund and the Government of Canada, and supported by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine that is also a beneficiary of the project. Project aims to strengthen added value chain few regions of Ukraine by creating 170 family farms and uniting 1000 smallholders that supplying quality milk to mini cooling tanks, improving capacity of small producers and empowering their coops.