On March 17, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. The reconstruction of 228 dairy farms is to be completed in the farms of the Vitebsk region by September. These tight deadlines were set for the heads of districts and farms by the Chairman of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, Alexander Kosinets, today at a seminar-meeting, according to a BELTA correspondent. The governor demanded that preparatory work be immediately commenced at all farms planned for commissioning this year, that the necessary construction materials be delivered by April 1, and that the active phase of work begin with the onset of warm weather. Alexander Kosinets emphasized that when reconstructing farms, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that the herd at the commissioned facilities will comprise at least 500 head of cattle, and milking should be carried out using modern technologies: in milking parlours or with the help of robots. "Dairy farms should become bio-factories for milk production," he stated. These approaches will make it possible to increase milk production volumes, improve its quality, enhance profitability, and, as a result, increase employees' wages. In the Vitebsk region, farms with manual milking yield an average of 3.5 thousand kg per cow per year, farms with milk pipelines yield 3.7 thousand kg, milking parlours yield 4.5 thousand kg, and robotic farms yield almost 6 thousand kg, of which 90% is rated as "extra" class, allowing for profitability close to 25%. However, in the Vitebsk region, out of 1,345 dairy farms, modern energy- and resource-saving technologies for animal keeping and feeding with milking in modern milking parlours, with computer support for all technological processes, are currently used at only 55 farms. At 311 dairy farms in the region, the morally obsolete, inefficient, and costly milk production technology based on tethered cow keeping and milking into portable buckets on linear milking installations is still used. These farms house 49.7 thousand cows, and their share in milk production volume is about 22%. Br61 billion has been allocated from the regional budget for the purchase of construction materials for the reconstruction of dairy farms. Construction work will be carried out at the expense of the farms' own funds, with Br55 billion allocated for these purposes. -0-

BELTA