REUTERS
Poultry and dairy cattle breeding remained profitable in 2019 as well.
Profit of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises in 2019 was driven by milk production revenues, which reached over UAH 2.6 billion (US$104.8 million) accounting for the major share in livestock profit, says Director of the National Scientific Center "Institute of Agrarian Economics", Yuriy Lupenko.
"However, profit of agricultural enterprises off of milk production in 2019 shrank by almost UAH 1.3 billion [US$52.4 million] against 2018," the Center's press service quoted Lupenko as saying on February 5.
"At the same time, profitability of this type of production decreased against the 2018 indicator by a mere 1%, to 15.1%," he said.
The expert says poultry breeding maintained profitability in 2019 beside dairy cattle breeding.
Read alsoDairy consumption in Ukraine doesn't decrease despite decline in production – expert
"Agribusinesses will receive over 2.5 times more profit off of this industry than they did in 2018, that is about UAH 275 million [US$11.1 million] against UAH 108.8 million [US$4.4 million] a year earlier," Lupenko said.
In general, livestock industry's revenues totaled UAH 3.2 billion (US$129 million) in 2019 against UAH 5.3 billion (US$214 million) in 2018 and UAH 6.2 billion (US$250 million) in 2017.
Agricultural enterprises' livestock breeding profitability also dropped significantly.
"If it was 12.7% in 2017 and 9.7% in 2018, last year it was replaced by a loss rate (3.5% down)," the press service said.
In particular, the cattle production losses grew to 27.5% from 17.7% in 2018, while those of sheep and goats – to 24.6% from 16.7% in 2018.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine saw a 26.5% rise in the profitability of milk production (the Ukrainian Milk Index/UMI) in January 2019.
Last year, milk output in Ukraine shrank by 3.7%, to 9.68 million tonnes.