General director of the Grodno breeding enterprise: “If we stop, they will catch up with us. This is unacceptable in genetics”

Three laboratories, almost 1.5 thousand heads of cattle , about 200 bulls and about 700 hectares of their own land. The center of selection and breeding work in the Grodno region is the Grodno breeding enterprise, one of the largest in Belarus - a producer of semen from breeding bulls and boars. For almost two decades, the organization with more than 80 years of history has been led by Peter Kashtelyan, who began his career in agriculture, namely in livestock breeding, as a veterinarian-gynecologist at the Grodno regional station. Recently, the manager was awarded a high state award: Petr Kashtelan was awarded the title of Honored Worker of Agriculture.

A journey of 40 years

The reason for the meeting with the HEAD of the Grodno breeding enterprise was the awarding of one of the highest state awards to Peter Kashtelan. As the leader says, in his life, among others, a third, one of the most significant and expensive awards appeared. The first was the awarding of the title of Master of Sports of the Soviet Union in boxing back in the 80s. Five years ago, Petr Kashtelyan was awarded the medal “For Labor Merit”. Today he talks about the third one, which has been added to the piggy bank:

“This is the highest award one can receive.” But first of all, this is an award for the entire team in my person. I simply cannot say it any other way. After all, I was awarded for the performance of the Grodno breeding enterprise that we achieved. For me as a leader, there are several key things: investments , employee salaries and human resources are the greatest wealth.

Petr Kashtelyan will cross the 40-year mark of working in livestock farming next year: the whole life of the general DIRECTOR of the Grodno breeding enterprise is inextricably linked with this area.

– In 1984, I began my work at the Grodno regional breeding station as a veterinarian-gynecologist, where I worked for 11 years. For the next five years, he worked in the Committee on Agriculture and Food of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee, as a leading specialist in breeding work. Then I was transferred to the position of first deputy head of the agricultural department of the Grodno regional executive committee. And after that, I have been working as the general director of the Grodno breeding enterprise for the 20th year,” says Pyotr Kashtelyan about his career.

At the same time, he notes that he got into agriculture partly by chance.

– I was involved in professional sports – boxing – for 12 years. I entered the Grodno Agricultural Institute, and I liked this profession, specifically the area related to breeding work,” shares Pyotr Kashtelyan. “Both my father and mother worked at a tobacco factory for 40 years. They raised me this way: if I come to a company, I must work there, and I shouldn’t jump from one place to another. That’s how it worked out, I was transferred everywhere, I didn’t change my job. I was lucky to have very decent and smart teachers in agriculture. This is, first of all, Stepan Mikhailovich Karanik, I worked under his leadership in the Committee on Agriculture and Food, Mikhail Viktorovich Kamarets, who worked as Chairman of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee, Alexander Viktorovich Voitekhovich, he worked as Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Food of the Grodno Regional Executive committee for a long time.

Petr Kashtelyan notes that it was thanks to teachers and joint work with the Committee on Agriculture that he was awarded the first among the heads of breeding services of the Republic of Belarus with the title “Honored Worker of Agriculture.”

Work for the future

With passion, clarity and knowledge, Petr Kashtelyan talks about how breeding work in Belarus has changed over several decades. We can say with confidence that advanced steps in the matter of selection were made precisely by the Grodno breeding enterprise.

– The goal of the breeding service of the Grodno region and the Republic of Belarus is to increase the genetic potential of farm animals located in the country. Our main goal is the development of dairy and beef cattle breeding, because these are exported goods. For almost 20 years, we have increased the level of evaluation of breeding animals and breeding sires, whose genetics work in all agricultural organizations in our region, by an order of magnitude,” Petr Kashtelyan introduces the matter.

Genomic assessment

The organization has been working at the highest level to evaluate bulls for the quality of their offspring over the past years.

– We have made it possible for our customers – primarily agricultural organizations in the Grodno region – to choose the best genetic material. We constantly have leading bulls who ensure the production of high-quality offspring thanks to advanced genetics, which makes it possible to obtain more MILK and MEAT,” notes the general director. – Currently, we are doing everything to gradually switch to genomic assessment of farm animals. Today, almost all animals kept at the enterprise and from which sperm products are obtained have their own genomic prognosis. If previously, in order to evaluate a bull based on the quality of its offspring, we needed at least five years, that is, the bull was assessed based on the productivity of its daughters, but today we have switched to genomic assessment, thanks to which we can predict at an early age that this bull will improve the breeding stock in terms of milk productivity, animal HEALTH and longevity, and exterior characteristics.

All this work today is carried out by specialists from both the breeding enterprise and the region’s farms.

Thus, it was the Grodno breeding enterprise that completely changed the entire system of work, which was previously considered a postulate in the selection and breeding direction. Here they were the first to start working with the genome. Thanks, among other things, to the Grodno breeding enterprise, the productivity of farm animals has increased significantly: the planned milk yield in 2023 in the region will be more than 7 thousand kg of milk per cow, in the Grodno region - about 10 thousand.

Improve performance

A turning point in the pig farming industry in Belarus was the construction of a station for artificial insemination of pigs.

– The first station in the country was built in the Grodno region - this is the center of selection and genetics in pig breeding of the Grodno breeding enterprise. Genetics were completely imported from Denmark, at that time we delivered 213 heads of breeding animals, and today the quality of meat on the shelves of our stores has radically changed. If earlier, until 2005, stores mainly sold lard pork , today it is pork with a predominance of meat. Today we create hybrids of various breeds by importing sperm products from various regions of the world in order to improve the quality of meat in the pig industry,” says Petr Kaštelyan.

At the Grodno breeding enterprise, they completely changed the entire previously established system of using boars and genetics - they brought it to a radically new level. It was they who began to supply agricultural organizations with the best genetics, which previously had simply nowhere to be obtained. And thanks to close work with the world’s best genetics, local specialists have increased the yield of meat in the carcass, improved the meat qualities of animals, and the characteristics of meat.

There are three specialized laboratories at the Grodno breeding enterprise: a dairy laboratory is engaged in determining the quality indicators of milk, and two are engaged in the production and evaluation of sperm of boars and bulls.

– When we staffed the center for selection and genetics in pig farming in 2006, my task was to hire 80-90% of the people who needed to be trained. The specifics were completely different, and it was easier to train a specialist to work with boars from scratch than to retrain them. We gained knowledge in Denmark, where pig farming was very developed,” says the general director.

Today, at the center of selection and genetics in pig breeding there are 183 boars of various breeds: Duroc, Landrace, Yorkshire and a few Pietrain.

– We provide the Grodno region with 100% genetic material (boar sperm), and also sell this type of product to the Gomel and Mogilev regions. There are only four similar stations in the country; ours has unique equipment. We annually produce and sell about 350-400 thousand doses of boar semen, which is 50 percent or more of all sales of these products in the Republic of Belarus,” noted Petr Kashtelyan.

The center for selection and genetics in pig breeding of the Grodno breeding enterprise is the most powerful in the country, the equipment here is unique on the scale of Belarus, and the technology for producing boar sperm is constantly being updated and improved.

– We added two more premises to the four existing ones, each with 48 cattle places. This is necessary in order to improve and maintain veterinary welfare at the station. It operates on an "empty-occupied" system. We built a separate room for storing mixed feed and a quarantine department (for 21 livestock places) so that animals would come here with the most reliable veterinary tests. This selection center is closed, adds the manager.

Comfort comes first

In 2004, there were only 42 stud bulls and 30 horses at the Grodno breeding enterprise.

– This was all the livestock production represented at our enterprise. By the end of the year we will have about 1.5 thousand cattle, of which about 200 are bulls. Our company has its own land, approximately 700 hectares. All animals are provided 100% with our own food. This year we have already prepared 6 thousand tons of high-quality haylage and are fully self-sufficient in the grain group. We received a yield of grain crops on our 100 hectares of about 86 c/ha, –

notes Petr Kashtelyan. – When I first came to work, we transferred all our stud bulls to free-stall housing. We tried to create optimal conditions for the animals, first of all, and comfort for those workers who serve them. Therefore, now all animals are kept loose and free-range, each of them must have its own place to rest and receive food. This is where we started. First of all, we invest in production. We are always at a high level of production - sperm accumulation per bull. We have one of the highest indicators in Belarus.

World class equipment

In the laboratory for the production, analysis and packaging of bull sperm products, there is a system for interactive analysis of bull and boar sperm. With its help, it is possible to analyze the sperm production of almost all types of farm animals for all indicators, including DNA integrity. The laboratory equipment is at the highest global level, the equipment is competitive, and sperm production is carried out in accordance with all the latest requirements of the EEC Commission. The entire analysis process is automated and allows you to track trends in quality changes.

The organization is gradually abandoning the selection stock of sperm due to the fact that, thanks to genomic analysis, bulls improving herds will initially be taken only at a young age, so in fact the sperm will be sold immediately after production. But even now the enterprise’s cryogenic storage facility has a stock of genetics, which allows customers to choose the best for their farm.

By the way, all manufactured products undergo strict veterinary control within the enterprise; close work is carried out with district and regional veterinary laboratories and with the Belarusian State Veterinary Center in MINSK.

There is an idea - there will be results

The construction of a new farm in the Shchuchinsky district for cattle began in 2020: one building was launched, then walking areas were built.

– This entire farm was originally intended to house about 300 head of beef cattle (Limousin, Aberdeen Angus and Hereford breeds), walking areas - to keep 320 head of cattle. As a result, to expand the technological capabilities of this division, we decided to build a third room in order to create a technology where today cows and heifers will be in front of the cow, calving, and where the cow and calf will be for two months after calving,” Petr Kaštelyan explains the nuances.

A pedigree farm for breeding beef cattle breeds is one of the technological elements of the production of high-value genetics in the Republic of Belarus. The genetic material produced under the conditions of this facility has outstanding genetic and qualitative characteristics.

Business loves initiative

– The key to the success and indicators that the Grodno breeding enterprise has achieved is that we are constantly introducing something new in the technological aspects of the production of milk, meat, and so on. There is always a risk in something new - whether it will work or not. The ability to foresee depends not only on me, but also on a team of specialists. There is an idea - there is a discussion in order to get a positive result in the future. The people who surround me are the best in their business. For me as a manager, the most important thing is that today every specialist has his own opinion and proposal. And any decision should not be made solely by the head of the enterprise, he only makes a certain conclusion,” the general director says about his approach.

And Petr Kashtelyan, as the head of the enterprise, supported all the advanced ideas from professional specialists and continues to do so. They say about the leader here that he was never afraid to take the initiative: even when many from the outside were sure that the idea might not come true, he never gave up. At the Grodno breeding enterprise they always tried something new, they even took risky steps, which completely justified themselves. They never missed a beat here.

After all, the organization clearly knows its mission: to always be one step ahead.

– Our task is to provide agricultural enterprises with the best advanced genetic material. If we stop, we will waste time, and in genetics this is unacceptable. After all, we are working to improve the efficiency of the livestock industry of the Republic of Belarus, and mistakes here are unacceptable,” sums up Petr Kashtelyan.

Today, the organization employs 203 people, of which 70 are specialists.

In the Grodno regional dairy laboratory of the breeding enterprise, milk is analyzed for fat, protein, somatic cells, urea, lactose, butyric acid, acetone and pregnancy is diagnosed in milk. Based on the analysis of the data provided by the laboratory, local specialists can draw conclusions about further work with animals. Laboratory technicians process 700 milk samples per hour, and this figure reaches 134 thousand per month. The laboratory cooperates with 123 farms in the region, with livestock coverage reaching 98%.

Katerina BENADISYUK

Photo by Leonid SHCHEGLOV