Russia's first selection and genetic centre for dairy cattle breeding will be built in the Krasnodar Region in 2022. An agreement to that effect was signed at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum by regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev and Anton Tolstopyatov, general director of the Kuban Breeding and Genetics Centre.

The centre, with a semen station and embryo transfer laboratory, will be erected in the Pavlovsky district. It will house 1.2 thousand cows at a time.

"The technological process in the breeding and genetic centre will be automated. The project will create about 100 new jobs. At the moment we are working on the design and estimate documentation, we select the necessary equipment", - Tolstopyatov said.

Construction will begin next year and will be completed in 2025. When it reaches full capacity, the center will annually produce 14.5 thousand tons of milk, two hundred heifers, five thousand embryos and 250 thousand doses of semen.

According to the head of the Kuban, in the last 30 years the Krasnodar Territory was able to increase the number of cattle for the first time. Last year, according to him, the yield from each cow was a record 9 tonnes, but even this result does not yet allow it to compete with foreign producers.

"Establishment of a selection and genetic center is the foundation of the dairy industry, a new stage in the development of cattle breeding in the region. It will make it possible to engage in our own breeding, rather than buying livestock from other countries, to improve the quality and availability of Kuban dairy products," Kondratiev explained.

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Author: Ksenia Gustova