In the last five years, a decrease in the number of animals has been observed in the country.
elchi reports that Minister of Agriculture Majnun Mammadov stated this at a meeting dedicated to agricultural issues chaired by President Ilham Aliyev.
He noted that, nevertheless, there is an increase in meat production and per capita meat consumption:
“Unfortunately, the increasing meat production cannot meet the growing meat consumption, and therefore meat imports have increased in recent years. I should note that one of the main challenges facing this sector is productivity. Productivity in animal husbandry is currently lower than desired. At the same time, the number of purebred animals in the herd accounts for only 2.5%. Unfortunately, this does not allow us to significantly increase productivity. From this point of view, I would like to present why intensification in the livestock sector is important. Just as in the crop sector, we see that extensive farms in the livestock sector have already exhausted their development potential in both milk and meat production. We also see that the main growth in the last five years has been due to intensive farms. However, their number is currently low in Azerbaijan, and we must achieve an increase in them. At the same time, regarding intensification, I would like to note that if a local breed cow in a family farm produces 1,800 liters of milk per year, the productivity per cow in intensive farms is 7,500 liters, and even in some farms, albeit few in number, it reaches 10,000-12,000 liters. We can see the same picture in beef production in intensive farms.”