Cattle raising

Cattle raising. Cattle have been the most important domestic animals in Ukrainian territories since the later Neolithic Period. In the 15th century oxen were exported from Left-Bank Ukraine and Podilia to Western Europe and later Muscovy for their value as food and draft power. Later they were exported from southern Ukraine. In the second half of the 19th century, as the steppes came under cultivation, grazing land diminished. In the forest-steppe belt, with the exception of Western Ukraine, the three-field system prevailed. Hence, cattle numbers did not keep pace with population growth. From 1897 to 1912 the number of cattle even declined by 8 percent in Russian-ruled Ukraine. In 1912 there were over 10 million head of cattle in all Ukrainian territories. Right-Bank Ukraine and Left-Bank Ukraine had the lowest cattle density, while Polisia, with its extensive meadows and pastures, and Galicia, with its abundance of cultivated grasses, had the highest. Ukraine was deficient in cattle: 35.7 percent of the farms had no cows. At the same time the types of cattle changed: the number of cattle raised for meat and work declined as the ox was replaced by the horse, and the number of milking cattle increased. In spite of the contributions of the zemstvos, the breeding of cattle was generally neglected. The annual production of milk in agricultural regions was 600–1,000 kg per cow. Although the number of cattle declined, over 50 million rubles’ worth of animal products was exported from Ukrainian gubernias per year, mainly to Poland.

In the first years of the First World War the cattle population increased from 6 million (1912) to 7.7 million (1916) in central and eastern Ukraine because the extent of fallow land increased. It declined during the Revolution of 1917 and the struggle for independence (1917–20) and rose again in the New Economic Policy period (9,928,000 in 1928), because the number of farms increased and each farmer wanted to own a cow. During the collectivization and the Famine-Genocide of 1932–3 the cattle population fell drastically to 3.4 million in 1933. To correct this, the Soviet government devoted much effort to the development of animal husbandry on collective farms and state farms . Every collective farm set up an animal farm. State farms specializing in animal husbandry were organized. Much was done to improve the stock. But the most significant step was the government’s compromise with the peasants that permitted them to keep a few privately owned head of cattle on private lots. This is clear from the fact that in 1938, when the cattle population in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic stood at 7.8 million, the vast majority of it was privately owned: 69 percent of the cattle belonged to collective farmers and other private persons (it went down to 63.6 percent in 1941, with 3.6 percent belonging to state farms and 30.9 percent to collective farms). In Western Ukraine there were no significant changes in cattle population.

In 1941 the number of head of cattle in the Ukrainian SSR was just under 11 million (13 million in all Ukrainian territories). During the Second World War the number fell by a half, and it returned to what it had been in 1941 only in 1950. Generally, advances in animal husbandry were much more difficult than in other branches of agriculture; hence, this branch fell further and further behind the demand of the increasing urban population for animal products. As before, the amount of land devoted to animal husbandry was deficient, and the collective farms lacked any material incentive to improve animal husbandry. The resolutions of the plenums of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (in September 1953 and January 1955, etc) and other Communist Party and government resolutions attempted to overcome these defects. Through an increase in the amount of land devoted to fodder crops and corn, a firm basis was laid for cattle farming. The wholesale and retail prices of animal products were raised, and the old breeds of cattle were improved and new breeds introduced.

Table 1 shows how the cattle population increased. By 1966 it had reached 21.3 million and remained stable for some time. In the 1970s it increased, reaching 24,924,000 in 1978. There were 29 million head of cattle in all Ukrainian territories (22.1 percent of all of the cattle in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). In 1978 cows numbered over 9 million (32.6 percent of the cattle total).

An index of the intensity of cattle farming is the number of cattle per 100 ha of agricultural land. In 1978 in the Ukrainian SSR the index was 51, compared to 23 in 1941 (in the USSR the 1978 index was 10.8). The index for cows was 18.7. Cattle farming was most intense in Galicia, Volhynia, and the forest-steppe of Right-Bank Ukraine (55 to 67 per 100 ha); of medium intensity on Left-Bank Ukraine and in the Kuban; and of lowest intensity on the southwestern steppe (38 per 100 ha). Table 2 shows the distribution of cattle by type of farm in Soviet Ukraine.

The growth in the cattle population occurred on the collective farms and state farms. The number of head raised on private plots remained the same or declined in the early 1980s. The main reason was the lack of an adequate fodder supply for private owners. Thus, only half of the collective farmers kept their own cows. The main emphasis of collective and state farms was placed on both meat and milk production, while the private owners concentrated on milk production. In 1978 cows constituted 32.1 percent of the cattle owned by collective farms, 34.4 percent of the cattle owned by state farms, and 62.8 percent of privately owned cattle.

The production of meat and milk increased more rapidly than the cattle population because of more intensive farming methods. The Ukrainian SSR produced over 552,000 t of beef and veal in 1950 and 1,118,000 t in 1968, which constituted 21.4 percent of the total produced by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Soviet Ukraine produced 6,804,000 t of milk in 1950 and 22,480,000 t in 1978 (73.2 percent of the milk came from collective farms and state farms and 26.8 percent from private plots), which constituted 23.6 percent of the milk produced by the whole USSR. In 1977, 527 centners of milk were produced for every 100 ha of agricultural land in Soviet Ukraine (in 1940 it was 167 centners), while in 1977 the USSR average was 92 centners. The average production per cow was 2,496 kg in 1977 (1,688 in 1955), while the USSR average was 2,232 kg. The production of milk per 100 ha was highest in western Ukraine and in the vicinity of large towns, where cattle farming consisted mostly of dairying. In 1977 the production of milk per person in Ukraine was 453 kg, while the per person production of meat was 70 kg (in the USSR the figures were 365 kg and 57 kg respectively). In spite of the increase in meat production, it barely met the demands of the urban population.

Since the late 1960s all cattle in Ukraine have been purebred. The proportion of purebred cattle increased as follows: 62 percent in 1951, 96 percent in 1955, and 100 percent in 1966. The most popular milk-yielding and milk-meat-yielding breeds in Soviet Ukraine were Red Steppe cattle and Simmenthal cattle (together constituting 80 percent of the cattle on collective farms and state farms), Red-Spotted cattle, Whitehead cattle, and Red-Polish cattle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Shyrokyi, I. Velyka rohata khudoba (Kharkiv 1930)
Romanenko, I. Razvitie produktivnogo zhivotnovodstva Ukrainskoi SSR (Kyiv 1957)
Chepurnov, I. Planuvannia tvarynnytstva (Kyiv 1969)

Volodymyr Kubijovyč

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]