Business news

MINSK, 2 February (BelTA) – OOO BelKumysProm in Logoisk District, Minsk Oblast is considering the possibility of exporting dairy horse breeding technologies, the company’s Director Oleg Sivchenko told BelTA.

The BelKumysProm Director said: “We intend to seriously start selling dairy horse breeding technologies abroad. In particular, negotiations are in progress with several regions of Russia, with Kazakhstan and Lithuania. The company intends to sell the franchise so that similar full-cycle enterprises could be built there in our image. In other words, these enterprises will take care of everything — from forage procurement to sales of ready-made products to consumers.” Oleg Sivchenko specified that the Belarusian company is ready to assist with setting up the enterprises and with training the personnel.

A corral is being built at Belarus’ only dairy horse farm now in order to allow the animals to move and keep up their muscle mass. The results will positively influence the health of their offsprings. BelKumysProm intends to start building warehouses for storing finished products and forage. There are plans to start processing organics. The company intends to reach the maximum horse milk output capacity of about 2 tonnes per day by the end of 2017. According to Oleg Sivchenko, future prospects of production expansion will depend on the market situation and changes of demand. It is important that consumers in Belarus already know horse milk. The company is now busy developing the technology to make a sour-milk product — kumis.

BelKumysProm boasts a smoothly operating safety and quality management system. The safety of forage is monitored. The quality of milk of every animal is analyzed on the fly during milking operations. The quality of milk is checked again in the milk processing and bottling department. Apart from that, samples from every batch of merchandise are shipped to the state laboratory for the final inspection.

Oleg Sivchenko is convinced that dairy horse husbandry has a great business future. In the first three years of lactation a horse produces up to 10 liters of milk per day. The output increases by 50% later on. Every lactation period lasts eight month. Horses can work productively and produce milk for 20-24 years.

Horse milk is a hypoallergenic product with a high share of useful protein of the albumin variety, which the human body can process well. Horse milk is rich in vitamin C and contains substances that help strengthen the immune system. BelKumysProm intends to contact the Agriculture and Food Ministry with a request to consider using mare milk for making baby food.

OOO BelKumysProm was established in 2013. Belarus’ first horse farm was built in Logoisk District in line with the investment contract signed with the Minsk Oblast administration. At present the company has two stables and about 400 horses of the Lithuanian breed and the Russian heavy draft breed, including 220 milking mares. The company has built a milking parlor and a facility to process mare milk. Support infrastructure to keep the horses healthy is available. There are plans to evaluate the milk production potential of the Belarusian draft horse breed.