State and prospects of the development of dairy cattle industry in the Stavropol territory

Abstract

This article presents the analysis of the state of dairy cattle industry and its short-term development prospects in connection with the crisis of 2020. For the purposes of objective assessment, we considered the period of 2015-2019 and presented the dynamics of the main statistical indicators with significant state support (grants, subsidies, etc.) for agricultural producers. In 2019 the total amount of disbursed funds was more than 1.4 billion rubles, most of which were directed to the development of dairy cattle breeding. According to the results of 2019, 73.9% in milk-production structure accrue to personal subsidiary farms, 19.6% - to agricultural organizations and 6.5% - to private farms. The significant share of produced milk in the Stavropol territory accrues to personal subsidiary farms; at the same time, the increase in milk production was 26.5% (643.8 thousand tons). Alongside the reduction of livestock in the general population of milk cattle in the Stavropol territory it is obvious that the genetic potential of cows increases due to the decrease of low-productivity animals and wide-scale import of high-producing breeding heifers, both from abroad and domestic market. The topical problems of the industry are low reproductive qualities of cows (the output of calves in agricultural organizations is only 75%), the violations of feeding technologies and animals housing due to insufficient availability of specialists. In general, industry development rate is quite high and has significant potential for production increase in short-term prospect, provided that the existing state-support programs continue. The most relevant trends are the increase of genetic potential of productivity in Stavropol livestock population, the adoption of state-of-the-art technologies for livestock keeping and feeding, as well as the development of farming and the niche of organic products.