A dairy farm for 839 cows has been opened in Chelyabinsk region

According to Azat Karsakbayev, head of the farm "Karsakbayev KB", investments in construction amounted to 500 million rubles. The new dairy farm includes two free stall cowsheds for animals, a milking and dairy unit and an administrative room.

‘Our project is called "Reconstruction and modernization of a dairy farm for 839 cows,’ he said. ‘Since 2014, we have launched a dairy farm with tied-up housing system for animals. It also works, here we keep 706 forage-fed Holstein cows. The remaining half of Holstein cows were brought to new buildings and 450 heifers of the same breed were purchased for a new farm. They were brought fr om Belgorod region - the "Green Valley", wh ere they were bought at 200 thousand rubles per animal.

According to the Head, before the opening of the new complex, 15 tons of milk a day were received from the "old" farm, now this figure has increased to 19 tons, as the livestock is growing, the pregnant heifers have calved. In the middle of next year, it is planned to reach the design capacity of up to 30-35 tons of milk daily.

‘There are no problems with the sale of milk at all, so far,’ said the Head of the peasant farm holding. ‘We send our milk to local regional processing plants at 34 rubles per 1 liter while the cost price is 30 rubles.’

The dairy farm is provided with its own feed, since Karsakbayev's farm has 45 thousand hectares of its own land. Alfalfa, corn, oats, and sudan grass are grown for animals. However, the main crops with which arable land is sown are durum wheat, sunflower and flax. Milk thistle, hemp, buckwheat and chickpeas are also grown.

‘It was very difficult to implement a project for reconstruction and modernization of the dairy farm,’ the head said. ‘We started construction, and then there was inflation, a crisis, a rise in the cost of the project. Unfortunately, the costs have increased by 20%. However, you cannot stop the construction, we had to work hard, and we did it. We invested 500 million rubles in the project, some of which are our own funds; some are preferential loans at 3.75%. If there were not a soft loan, we probably would not have taken up construction.

According to him, by the end of this year, the regional budget promises to compensate 20% of construction costs on capex.