INNOVATIVE RABBIT BREEDING IN THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE
Liudmyla Gibner, Ievgeniia Khakimova
Sumy State University, Ukraine
Today the importance of economic development under the concept of sustainable development is the matter of world's concern. The concept of sustainable development is guided by many principles, but in our view the fundamental principle is the quality of life, where food security plays an enormous role.
In Ukraine there are many problems associated with food security. Ukraine had to face a number of great problems trying to provide the food security during the transitional period. Due to the research done the main problems in Ukrainian agricultural development are unbalanced production structure of agricultural goods, inefficient production, inelastic demand on food products, great number of adjoined to the house farms. The matter is that Ukraine has huge agricultural potential in many spheres and it’s not normal that only some of them are developing while others are underdeveloped such as animal breeding. As the result Ukrainians suffer much from consuming less meat than it’s required by health physiological norms.
This happens because of low income of Ukrainians and they just can’t afford quality meat products.
Though bird meat is cheap it can’t fulfill the need of quality animal protein of a person. Beef or pork are expensive; the major volume of this types of meat are imported to Ukraine while the cattle stocks decrease; and even investments in this fie ld couldn’t provide the result needed because that would require a lot of time and money invested in inefficient production.
So the best way to help in solving these problems in Ukraine is to imply different kinds of production projects of agricultural goods and to improve the situation with agricultural infrastructure all over the country. These productions projects must be effective, environmentally friendly, must require small incremental investment, and considerably rapid payback that is most appropriate for investors in unstable conditions of the investment climate in Ukraine, and must offer the product that is not widely presented in the Ukrainian market.
The project that meets all the requirements of sustainable development and ones, that is listed above is t he project of innovative rabbit breeding.
The proposed project regard production of rabbit meat and fur, as well as selling of delicacy liver, by -products, biohumus and breeding livestock by improved and optimized technology of acceleration rabbit, that p rovides a return on more than 200% for the 7 years, that is significantly higher than the profitability of existing techniques.
By offered technology rabbits are grown in purely ecological conditions without any bio -additives and hormonal growth stimulants. So the consumption of such “pure” meat can considerably improve health, immunity, enhance vitality, and the level of life of population consequently. And this is a waste free production.
Rabbit breeding is a promising branch of animal industry. Rabbits differ in multiple pregnancy and early maturity. The main difference from conventional livestock - is the simplicity of use and high profits.
At the moment the market of rabbit meat and by-products is on the stage of developing. The Ukrainian market is occupied by only 15-20 per cent. Due to its qualitative characteristics rabbit meat have high demand but low supply. For example, in neighboring Russia, government program of supporting the rabbit production.
Acceleration rabbit breeding is the upgraded technology of growing rabbits in special conditions. Main differences of accelerated rabbit from the ordinary are next: he does not get sick, it is rapidly growing and very prolific, he has fur, whi ch is called mikraksel, that is highly valued, he has no odor, accelerated rabbit meats taste like deli, environmentally friendly and has healing properties.
We propose to breed accelerative rabbit race in an innovative minifarms on adjoined to the house farmland (pic.1). Mini-farms takes into account the physiological needs of rabbits in the best way, creating ideal conditions for their growth.
It is highly useful point in Ukraine where the cost of labor is low is that the mini-farm does not require high material costs, but require greater complexity comparing with the industrial plant.
Proposed construction of a farm is similar to Mikhailov's mini -farms at the general points but at the same time proposed project has innovative technological and organizational improvements over the classic accelerated rabbit breeding in Mikhailov's mini-farm. Proposed enhancements will allow:
- to reduce the complexity of the production;
- to reduce the cost of building a mini-farm and to use land much more efficient (round-shaped farm, giving more space at less material costs);
- to increase the number of cycles of growing rabbits, and, accordingly, the turnover of funds;
- to improve conditions of rabbits detention;
- to enable active movement of fattening rabbits between the storeys, which allows to gain muscular and not fat mass, thus improving the quality features of both meat and the total weight of rabbit;
- improving the design of the breed sheds (rabbits are hiding so that the doe rabbit while getting into the breed sheds is unable to trample animal yield, which significantly reduces the risk of mortality).
Calculation showed that if implying these technology in the complex of 8 mini -farms on the adjoined to the house land we’ll need 88000UAH, 13.5 month of implementation period, payback of the project 18.5 months at a price of realization 70
UAH (which is the market price on rabbit meat) and 3.2 years at a price of 30 UAH (which is socially aimed price).
So project shows good financial stability and implementation of the proposed technology can improve the critical situation in Ukrainian agriculture and create jobs.