At Kusto Group we’re always delighted to see our companies finding new areas of growth. Just look at Veltse Ltd., part of our Kusto Agro division, which has just begun work on a dairy farm in Ukraine.
Last week, we took up our shovels and celebrated the breaking of new ground for the farm in the village of Lypne, which is located in the Lyubarsky district of the north-western Zhytomyr region of the country. The farm will eventually be home to some 1,200 Holstein cows. This is a popular breed of dairy cow, thanks to their record-breaking milking abilities and top-quality meat.
My colleagues at Veltse look forward to seeing its first stage completed by July, and we expect construction to come to a close by next November 2020. But thanks to this farm, by December 2019, Veltse will have already created around 50 jobs for the local economy. By April 2021, we can expect the farm to reach its planned yield — with delicious, home-sourced milk finding its way to Ukraine’s supermarket shelves and breakfast tables.
In total, Veltse is committing about $8 million to the project — a sure sign of the value it, and Kusto Agro, place on top-quality animal husbandry in Ukraine.
I’m particularly proud that the cows on the farm will be loose-kept: not only will this allow them to roam around their pastures at will, but it will also reduce the labour involved in needing to care for them day-to-day. Added to the fact that the new farm will make best use of the latest agricultural technology and automate most of the heavy work, we can be confident that the cows will be strong, healthy and happy — while the farm’s productivity and efficiency will rise.
Veltse’s project is exactly what Kusto Group is all about — taking advantage of innovative methods and entrepreneurial expertise to unlock fresh potential. It is a clear sign of both progress in animal husbandry and our firm commitment to the world’s emerging markets.