World meat industry news

The construction of the first farm of the breeding and genetic center for sheep breeding "Damate" in the Stavropol Territory has entered the final stage. The work is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2023, the company said, at the same time the first animals will be delivered. The site will be designed for a one-time maintenance of 1.8 thousand sheep. In August, the delivery of technological equipment from the world leader in the development and production of solutions for working with the herd of small cattle is expected. Investments in the project will amount to 1.1 billion rubles.

The first stone of the breeding and genetic center in the Predgorny district of the Stavropol Territory was laid in January of this year. The launch of the center will make it possible to create the best gene pool of Russian sheep by transferring the latest technologies in the field of genetics, breeding and reproduction, and reduce dependence on imported breeding products, Damate notes.

Highly productive purebred breeding sheep will be bred in the breeding center, work will be carried out to record and evaluate their productivity and the quality of livestock products. In general, the project involves the creation of an intensive sheep breeding complex, including two farms for 3 thousand ewes, an artificial insemination station, an embryo laboratory and a quarantine site for 300 animals. The farm's specialists will control the entire production cycle - from insemination to fattening, which will achieve production efficiency at the level of the world's leading players, guarantee consistently high meat quality, and flexibly adjust the production cycle to market needs.

As I wrote earlier, it is planned that the center will annually produce 1.5 thousand sheep with genomic and breeding certificates, 600 thousand straws of sexed and ordinary semen, 31.5 thousand embryos with genomic evaluation. Also, during the implementation of the project, it is planned to create the first in Russia reference base of small ruminants.

The Damate group of companies is engaged in the production of turkey (No. 1 in Russia in terms of production), duck and lamb, and is also developing dairy farming, milk processing and its own genetic projects. In the North Caucasian Federal District, "Damate" develops the production of lamb. Within the framework of the project, the construction of breeding and feeding grounds is underway, the largest meat processing plant in the country has been launched. The company was the first in Russia to start working with sheep farms on a contract farming model. The service company created for this purpose provides consulting and resource support to partner farms.