VOLUMES OF MILK PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING IN UKRAINE SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE FULL-SCALE INVASION

Abstract

2021, 8,72 million tons of milk were produced in Ukraine against 9,25 million tons a year earlier. At the same time, agricultural enterprises produced 2,75 million tons of milk (0,4% less), households – 5,97 million tons (8,2% less). In 2021, according to the State Statistics Service, processing enterprises received almost 3,2 million tons of raw milk, from which butter, milk and cream (dry and condensed), cheese, whey, etc. were produced. Once again, after the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, the regions that produced 42,3% of the milk volume were in the zone of hostilities and occupation. The largest share of milk was previously provided by the «hot spots» of February-March 2022 – Chernihivska (8,9% of all industrial milk, i.e. that which comes for processing from agricultural enterprises), Kharkivska (8,9%), Kyivska (8,2%), Sumy (5,9%) and Zhytomyr (4,3%) oblasts. In many affected regions, according to market participants, the productivity of cows decreased by 15-70%. Therefore, and accordingly, it is predicted that the production of industrial milk in 2022 may decrease by 19,5% – from 2,75 to 2,21 million. The decrease in production volumes of raw milk and milk products in Ukraine, even under the most pessimistic scenarios, will not exceed 17-18%. Accordingly, the supply of raw milk to processing enterprises will decrease, but in the current conditions such figures are not final. After all, reformatting may take place in the milk production market. While large industrial farms will resume work on the usual scale, medium and small dairy farms will be able to enter the arena. It is possible that the share of milk purchases from the population will increase if the fuel situation in Ukraine more or less stabilizes. After all, the costs of collecting such milk are mostly associated with availability and fuel costs.