June 23, 2020

Ukrainian meat body reveals programme to revive local pig industry

Ukraine's Meat Industry Association, a union of 20 top meat processing companies, has unveiled a major investment project to reinvigorate the country's pig farming sector.

The industry has seen closures of over 2,000 pig farms for the past six years while high prices for finished pigs resulted from overspending in farms. Local meat processors are thus concerned of the impact on meat supply, according to Mykola Babenko, executive director of the Meat Industry Association.

Due to the challenges faced by the Ukrainian pig industry, pork imports from the European Union and Canada have to make up for supply. Even then, meat prices have increased to very high levels.

Therefore, Babenko announced a five-year programme  -- known as New Pig Production-2025 --  to "support the development of pig farming in Ukraine" by stimulating "the breeding of pigs for the needs of the meat industry of Ukraine up to 20 million heads at a time and more."

"This is the number of pigs Ukraine has had in 1991, so it's not an abstract goal," Babenko explained.

Overall, pig numbers in Ukraine's 24 regions dropped to a new low of 5.7 million heads, as of January 1 this year. Only 3.3 million out of that number came from industrial pig farming.

"Our goal is to help solve the problem of global pork shortage and make Ukraine one of the leading competitors in the meat market," said Babenko of the new programme.

"Ukrainian chicken has already achieved global success, now it's pork's time. In partnership with Center for Improvement of Animal Breeding, with the financial support of the Meat Industry Association participants, we are ready to support the expansion and modernisation of existing pig farms, along with guidance for the new investors - Ukrainian and foreign farmers who have interest in pig farming projects with the return on investment rate of about 100% per year."

- The Pig Site