Expensive meat: Ukraine’s cattle population declined sharply (details)

During the year, the number of cattle in Ukraine decreased by 4.3%. In particular, there are fewer cows, pigs, sheep, and goats, writes Agro-Center.

In August of 2018, the number of cattle was 4 million heads; it’s 4.3% less than on August 1st, 2017. In one year, the number of cows decreased by 3.4%, of pigs – by 4.9%, of sheep and goats – by 4.4%. The number of cows in August was 2 million, pigs – 6.5 million, sheep and goats – 1.6 million. According to the State Statistics Service, 70% of the cattle are owned by people.

However, it should be noted that a number of poultry grew by 4.5% and amounted to 247.8 million heads. Only 53% of birds belong to people; the rest is owned by large companies.

During the period from January to August 2018, agrarian enterprises managed to realize their production by 8.5% more than last year. It should be noted that the sales of plant-based products grew by 12.3%, and the sales of animal products decreased by 2.7%.

One of the reasons for the decline of the popularity of animal breeding in Ukraine is an increase of prices for meat products. Nowadays, Ukrainians buy less meat.

Let’s recall that animal slaughter laws have recently changed in Ukraine.