Will the bet on ultra-modern pig farming in Belarus pay off? We analyze a specific example
April 16, 2025
The development of pig farming is of particular importance for Belarus. Powerful pig breeding complexes operate in all regions, the products of which are supplied not only to the domestic market but also for export.
However, the outbreak of African swine fever in 2013 dealt a blow to the industry. Over time, other problems have accumulated. Pig farming in Belarus is still in a difficult situation. This issue had to be taken under personal control by the head of state, Alexander Lukashenko, and only thanks to timely measures was the situation gradually stabilized, and now farmers are looking to the future with optimism. In the new issue of the BELTA YouTube project "As a Matter of Fact: The First's Decisions," we will tell you about the current situation at pig breeding complexes in Belarus, why a "milk taxi" is used there, and why the pigsties smell of… vanillin, what the strategy for the development of ultra-modern pig farming says, and whether Belarusians really risk losing their shashlik with cognac. To find answers to these questions, we visited one of the pig complexes. And getting there turned out to be more difficult than getting into a nuclear power plant. We will tell you everything now.
How much pork is produced in Belarus
Annually, Belarusians consume about 295 thousand tons of pork, and local enterprises more than cover the population's appetite. The main volume of meat is produced at industrial complexes for raising and fattening pigs. Currently, there are just over ninety of them in Belarus. On average, each of them can accommodate about 20-25 thousand animals. These are quite compact farms, but in our conditions, they have proven themselves in the best possible way.
However, Alexander Lukashenko is convinced that Belarusian pig farming has much greater prospects. To achieve high performance, the President emphasizes, it is necessary to modernize pig complexes, observe elementary measures of technological and labor discipline, intensify selection and breeding work, and improve the formulation of compound feeds. At the same time, the President called the provision of biological protection for pig complexes a task of state importance.
"There must be a specific program for putting these complexes in order. Otherwise, we will soon not have a single kilogram of pork in our country for you to go out into nature and prepare yourself some shashlik with cognac. The complexes are worn out, morally and physically obsolete. Let's think about a centralized program for the reconstruction of our pig complexes and the construction of new ones," Alexander Lukashenko said in September 2023 at a meeting on pig farming development.at a meeting on pig farming development.
Six months later, the head of state again demanded that farmers work for the future and instructed them to develop a 10-year strategy for the development of ultra-modern pig farming. "It must include everything: progressive genetics, feed, environmental friendliness. The goals are super-large-scale - maximum deepening of processing and our export expansion," the President stated.
And such a strategy was approved. Among its priorities are the construction of new pig complexes, the improvement of selection and breeding work, the development of pig feeding diets taking into account their breed and productivity direction, the implementation of a digital monitoring system in production facilities, and the creation of large agroholdings, which will include land, feed mills, meat processing, and trade organizations in their structure.
"Last year, we produced over 413 thousand tons of pork nationwide. We fully supply the domestic market with pork, meeting the needs of the population. Nevertheless, a task has been set. We have developed a strategy for ultra-modern pig farming until 2034, according to which we plan to build about 12 new modern pig farming complexes, and 4 of them will have a capacity of over 100 thousand pigs for fattening per year. If this strategy is successfully implemented overall in these years, we will additionally produce 80 thousand tons of pork. And we will have about 500 thousand tons," said Nataliya Sonich, Head of the Main Department for Intensification of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.