Representatives from the UK sheep, cattle and pig sectors were part of an impressive Great Britain & Northern Ireland presence at the Agro-Animal & Grain Tech Show held in Kiev, Ukraine, 15-17 February 2017. Supporting UK Agri-tech exports were the British Embassy Kiev, Department of International Trade (DIT) and UKTAG (UK Technology for Agriculture & Genetics). UK exhibitors were delighted to welcome Judith Gough, British Ambassador to Ukraine, to the stand to talk about developing trade between the UK and Ukraine.

Representatives from the UK livestock sector included Sue & Aubrey Andrews from Miserden Texels/British Texel Sheep Society, Chris Jackson from British Pig Association, Richard Saunders from BLG and Delta Wagyu Europe. Other UK companies present were JCB, Baker-Tilly, Househam, Addfield, Grain & Milling (Perendale Publishing) among others.

Whilst export health certificates are already in place for the UK to export bovine semen, porcine semen and breeding pigs to Ukraine, a key objective was to make ground on getting export protocols in place for breeding cattle and sheep as well as sheep semen. To this end, Chris Jackson & Richard Saunders met with Olga Shevchenko, Unit Chief for International Collaboration for the Ukrainian State Service for Food Safety & Consumer Protection to aid the ongoing work of UKECP (UK Export Certification Partnership).

Day 2 saw a series of seminars on behalf of the British-Ukrainian Business Forum to include presentations from: Dr Simon Docherty (pictured above), Animal Science & Aquaculture Specialist for the UK Government's Agri-Tech organisation; Chris Jackson, UKTAG, on Livestock Breeding for Profitable Production; and Mike Button, Coventry Chemicals, on the importance of farm biosecurity.

Ukraine Overview

Ukraine is a Priority One market for the UK. Prior to this event, Inward Trade Missions had taken place to the Livestock Event (July 2016), Lamma (Jan 2017) as well as a visit to the British Livestock stand at EuroTier (Nov 2016).

Ukraine has seen a big shift in animal production since the end of the Soviet era. Figures below show populations in millions in 1990 compared to the 2015 figures in brackets:

Cattle 25m (3m)

Pigs 20m (7m)

Sheep & Goats 9m (2m)

2015 figures reveal meat production levels in Ukraine as follows: poultry 1,144,000t; pork 760,000t; beef 384,000t; lamb 14,000t. 2015 import/export figures for meat are: poultry 161,000t/61,000t; beef 32,000t/1,000t; pork 12,000t/4,000t with lamb figures very small. Whilst animal breeding is spread throughout Ukraine, the largest areas are Lviv & Ivano-Frankivs'k in the Western Carpathians; Vinnytsya (Central), Poltava (central East) and Kharkiv (N East).

For further information, please contact Richard Saunders on 07901-768904