OREANDA-NEWS. March 01, 2012. The import volumes of meat and dairy products to Ukraine have been decreased in 2011. The Ukrainian farmers have managed to achieve these results thanks to increasing domestic production. In particular, imports of meat to Ukraine fell by 132 thousand tons, and milk - by 25 thousand tons. This was announced by the Director of Department of livestock breeding of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food Andriy Hetya.

"Last year, 246 thousand tons of meat imported to Ukraine. The main suppliers were Brazil, Poland and Germany. In the export structure there are dominated by poultry meat and pork. As for the exports, in 2011, Ukraine exported 80 thousand tons of meat to Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova," told Andriy Hetya.

In Ukraine, the first ranks for number of livestock of pigs are occupied by the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions. In each of them there are maintained more than 500 thousand pigs’ heads of livestock.

"Last year was marked by the construction and reconstruction of pig farms. The most active reconstruction of farms for raising cattle takes place in the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytsky regions where updates more than five such farms," the Director of Department of livestock breeding noted.

In 2012, under the national project "revived cattle breeding," it is expected production of more than 11 million tons of milk.