26 July, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. By 2013, there should be no farms with manual milking in the Vitebsk region. This was stated today at a meeting of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee by its Chairman, Alexander Kosinets, as reported by a BELTA correspondent. According to Alexander Kosinets, 228 dairy farms are being reconstructed in the region this year. There are still 77 farms with manual milking, which house 12.5 thousand cows. "We need to decide what to do with them: reconstruct them, re-profile them for calf fattening, or demolish them and build modern dairy complexes in their place. By the end of the year, we should have no bucket milking farms," said the governor. The task for next year is to move away from the grazing period. "We drive livestock out into the fields – immediately two-thirds of the grass is trampled by hooves. It is more effective to harvest green mass and feed it through feed dispensers. And the milk yields are immediately different," added the Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee. He stressed that this year the region will reach 4.6 thousand kg of milk per cow in terms of milk yield, and the result in 2013 is expected to be from 5 thousand kg and above. "We must strive for this, as we need raw materials for the large cheese production facilities being built in Postavy and Braslav," concluded the governor.-0-

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