A further 15 facilities across seven regions for around 50,000 dairy cows under construction
Ekosem-Agrar, the German holding company of Russian milk producer Ekoniva Group, has built its largest dairy cow facility to date in Siberia’s Novosibirsk region with space for 6,000 dairy cows.
In the presence of Andrey Travnikov, Governor of the Novosibirsk Oblast, the state-of-the-art facility named “Elban” was officially opened recently after a construction period of about one year. The dairy cow facility includes six spacious stalls for 1,000 dairy cows each, two large milking carousels for 72 cows each and a high-performance cooling system for 240 tons of milk.
At full capacity, Elban achieves a milk output of around 180 tons per day. A smaller facility for 3,550 dairy cows is currently being built in this region. This will increase the number of dairy cows of the Group in the Novosibirsk region from around 12,900 today to around 17,000 in 2020. The new facility will create around 170 new jobs. In total, the Siberian EkoNiva subsidiary now employs more than 1,000 people with three dairy farms and its other agricultural activities in the Novosibirsk region.
Stefan Dürr, CEO and main shareholder of Ekosem-Agrar AG: “The newly constructed facility in Novosibirsk is one of the world’s largest and most modern dairy cow facilities. We are thus setting standards in terms of efficient milk production and can almost double our milk output in the region to approx. 400 tons per day.”
The Group is currently building a total of 15 facilities in seven regions of Russia, with a total capacity of around 50,000 dairy cows. All facilities are subject to the Russian government’s subsidy program with non-repayable subsidies as well as low-interest investment loans and are fully financed. Ekosem-Agrar is thus continuing its dynamic growth path to expand its market leadership in the Russian raw milk market.
By the end of 2019, the dairy cow herd is expected to exceed the 100,000 head mark, with an annual milk yield of over 800,000 tons.