On 29 July, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Russian Agricultural Bank Boris Listov, Tyumen Region Governor Alexander Moor and Chairman of Board of Directors of Damate Group Naum Babaev signed an agreement to construct a pedigree turkey breeding farm for 12 million eggs per year and a pedigree sheep breeding facility for 4,000 ewes – projects that will create around 300 jobs in Tyumen Region.
Russian Agricultural Bank (RusAg) will act as a financial partner, and Tyumen Region government has agreed to consider securing state support for the project, including through subsidies.
Damate’s decision to locate its breeding unit in Issetsky District of Tyumen Region will help source turkey hatching eggs from within Russia, shift away from dependence on imports and use more efficient logistics to step up production. The unit will have ten sections (five for rearing stock and five for parent stock) and will be able to accommodate 137,500 fowl at a time.
Additionally, Tyumen Region intends to launch a ground-breaking selective breeding / genetics project for sheep farming. Damate’s breeding facility for 10,800 animals will have a lab to select and store more than 200,000 semen doses and 2,000 embryos per year. It will also include a summer pasture and a land bank for feed production. Given this level of technical capability and Damate’s intention to produce and sell its breeding material, the project will help create the first reference base for Russia’s small cattle. With up-to-date breeding technologies and advances in genetics, it will magnify the breeding effect and improve the gene pool for domestic sheep.
Work is currently under way to allocate land plots and to plan the construction of electric / gas networks and access roads. A technological concept for high biosecurity areas has been developed.
"I have no doubt that investing in genetics will open up vast opportunities. President Putin has identified the development of proprietary genetic material for national agriculture as one of the key targets for Russian government. We have already provided over RUB 11 billion in financing to more than 100 borrowers working on genetic projects for agriculture and will continue to invest in high tech," said Boris Listov.
"Our projects for Tyumen Region will drastically enhance genetic security of Russian agribusiness and speed up the transfer of the best innovative technologies in animal breeding; and government support is absolutely essential here. Because, as a matter of fact, we are creating the first national centre for selective breeding and genetics, as well as the first genetic reference database for small cattle in Russia. This makes Tyumen Region a national leader in livestock farming and genomic selective breeding," said Naum Babaev.
"The agreements we signed today go a long way towards deepening relations with our long-standing partners RusAg, Damate and TyumenAgro as we work to deliver on multi-billion high-tech projects, including two for agricultural genetics. Genetics is totally new for us, but we hope we will be successful. Major investment projects under way are always a good message for other businesses up and down the region to the effect that you can do business in local agriculture, a sector that is both challenging and very efficient. Not only do we look forward to developing local companies but we also wish to bring in federal players, given that national agribusiness is growing steadily from year to year and that it is a driver of domestic economy," said Alexander Moor.