Ulyanovsk livestock breeders are ready to slaughter cows

The situation was discussed at the Agrarian Committee of the Legislative Assembly. Acting Minister of Agro-Industrial Complex Alexey Leushkin said that in several areas the region will not be able to meet the target indicators previously planned by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation. The federal government allocated money for this , and therefore, in order to avoid a fine at the end of the year, an additional agreement was concluded on the redirection of money for other needs. It was decided to use the 15.3 million rubles freed up in this way to support livestock breeders (10 million) and reserve them for farmers growing grain crops (5.3 million).

As Leushkin specified, 6 million rubles will be removed from funding for the renewal of the material and technical base of agricultural cooperatives this year. This year, cooperative members have not submitted a single grant application for reimbursement of these costs.

11.6 million will be redirected from the line “land clearing” – because there are currently no areas with abandoned gardens in the region that require such work.

A little more than 2.5 million rubles will be withdrawn from vegetable and potato growing, modernization of vegetable storage facilities and increasing the fertility of potatoes and vegetable crops. The reason is that vegetable growers did not apply for these purposes. And not a single preparation was presented for conducting fertility experiments.

A heated discussion at the committee was caused by the reduction of funding for breeding stock by 6.8 million rubles. The Russian Ministry of Agriculture allocated subsidies for 1,000 heads of breeding cattle for the Ulyanovsk region this year . But one of the farms refused this direction. The result was minus 200 heads and “extra” subsidies from the federal center.

Deputies stated that livestock farming is already a very complex and expensive industry. And livestock breeding is many times more difficult: "To get a penny, you need to overcome a huge number of problems." Among them is the registration of farms' work through digital platforms (Mercury, etc.), when programs constantly crash, there is no Internet, and an unprofitable economy .

Today, Ulyanovsk livestock breeders are literally being persuaded to leave the status of a breeding farm. As Alexey Leushkin noted, breeding cattle is very expensive, it requires special equipment, highly qualified specialists, veterinarians. When agricultural producers see that their animals are not being bought at a certain price, it is easier for them to take a different path - to sell without breeding certificates, but a little cheaper.

- Previously, we could show more milk yields, meat sales, there was no requirement to sell breeding cattle to the side. But now, whether you want it or not, you sell it, and this is also one of the things that forces people to move away from breeding livestock, - explained his position the head of the peasant farm "Vozrozhdenie" Vadim Martynov.

The acting Minister of Agro-Industrial Complex cited telling figures. Keeping a breeding cow in large farms costs 310 thousand rubles per head, in small farms (200-300 animals) - 210 thousand. Compensation from the budget is only 10 thousand rubles per animal . As a result, many farms engaged in breeding breeding cattle work at best at zero. And in general, the situation for livestock breeders is difficult.

- And these are, by the way, farmers who support the village, provide people with work, repair schools, clean roads. They say that if nothing changes, the cattle will simply be "driven off". Now there is a decrease in the number of cattle , then we see a decline in pig farms, - Leushkin explained.

Vadim Martynov confirmed that "keeping 500 dairy cows is zero, and anything higher is easy profit": - One forage harvester now costs more than 100 million rubles. If it continues like this, the end will be disastrous. Even now, with our herd (about 1,500 heads, - editor's note), we do not feel the profit. Those who work outside of livestock farming laugh at us: they are doing great, and you are here, "in one place."

The livestock breeder deputies never revealed which farm refused to renew its license for breeding pedigree cattle, although their colleague Ramil Khakimov insisted on it. The head of the committee, Ramil Khairullin, advised him to go to the farms, scan the pedigree livestock breeders and find out everything himself - there are only 5-6 people who do this, not thousands.

In 2021, the Legislative Assembly adopted the law "On the legal regulation of certain issues related to the implementation of livestock breeding in the Ulyanovsk Region". At that time, there were 11 farms operating in this area in the region. Of these, one was breeding pigs and 10 were breeding cattle (9 dairy breeds and one beef breed). Since 2018, Ulyanovsk livestock breeders have acquired 3,500 heads of high-genetic productivity breeding cattle. Now, as the figures show, the situation has worsened significantly.