Poultry meat production in the Rostov region increased fivefold in 2021 - Vasily Golubev

The volume of poultry meat production in the Rostov region in 2021 increased five times, Governor of the region Vasily Golubev announced on Tuesday during a solemn event dedicated to the Day of Agricultural and Processing Industry Workers. The region's largest producer intends to ship 65 thousand tons of turkey and duck in live weight by the end of the year.

"2021 has become a period of restoration of the Don poultry industry. Over the year, the production of meat [poultry] has been increased <…> by more than five times. An additional 3.5 thousand jobs have been created or restored," the head of the region said.

Golubev noted positive trends in animal husbandry as well. Thus, milk production increased by 4%. "With state support, 17 dairy farms have been modernized this year, more than 3,000 heads of cattle have been purchased," the governor noted. "I am sure that animal husbandry can become an industry of advanced development."

The growth in poultry meat production in the Rostov region is associated with the restart in 2020 by the Indyushkin Dvor company, which is part of the Damate Group of Companies, the production of turkey and duck meat after the bankruptcy of the Eurodon company. On Tuesday, the Governor discussed the development of poultry farming with Naum Babaev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Damate Group of Companies. "This year, we will produce 65,000 tons of meat in live weight at the enterprises of the Rostov region, including 15,000 tons of duck meat and 50,000 tons of turkey," said Babaev, whose words were quoted in the press service of the head of the region.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Damate Group of Companies added that the company is expanding the geography of product supplies. Thus, the first batch of duck meat for export was shipped from the enterprise in the Millerovsky district, which was sent to the United Arab Emirates. According to Babaev, the investor invested 1.3 billion rubles in the restart of production. At the same time, 370 million rubles were allocated from the regional budget for the purchase of hatching eggs and breeding young animals for two years.

Earlier it was reported that "Damate" has completely completed the formation of a herd of breeding birds in the amount of 88 thousand heads. The planned capacity for the production of turkey meat is 85 thousand tons in slaughter weight per year.

The stoppage of production at Eurodon was the result of outbreaks of bird flu at the enterprises of the group of companies in 2016-2018. As a result, Eurodon defaulted on the payment to one of its main creditors - VEB Capital. Since February 2019, a monitoring procedure has been introduced at the enterprises of the group. In October 2019, the Supervisory Board of VEB.RF decided to sell Eurodon Group of Companies.

In April 2020, the Damate Group of Companies leased the capacities of Eurodon from Rosselkhozbank and began implementing a project to restart production. In November last year, the work of the turkey slaughtering and processing plant was resumed.