EkoNiva Group, Russia's largest dairy holding, and Rosselkhozbank have announced the commissioning of a feed mill in Aristovo village, Ferzikovo district of Kaluga oblast. Investments in the project totalled around 470 million rubles, with the bank acting as the financial partner.

The infrastructure of the feed mill comprises a 10,000-tonne grain acceptance, handling and storage line, a crumbled feed line with a capacity of 10 tonnes per hour and a pelleted feed line producing 2 tonnes per hour. The crumbled feed line carries out technological operations of macro- and micro-dosing, crushing and mixing. The pelleted feed line provides for a possibility of including liquid components into the formulation. The feed mill also has raw material bins with a total capacity of 200 tonnes and finished product bins with a volume of 216 tonnes. In addition, a modular gas boiler house was built to generate heat and steam.

The production line of the feed mill is controlled by cutting-edge automation tools, in particular industrial controllers, which makes for meeting stringent quality standards for the finished fodder. The facility also has its own laboratory to check the quality of incoming raw materials and manufactured compound feed.

The projected capacity of the feed mill is approximately 73,000 tonnes per year. Every hour, it can produce 10 tonnes of compound feed for milking cows or 2 tonnes of pelleted feed for young stock, all intended for covering the needs of Kaluzhskaya Niva, EkoNiva Group’s regional subdivision in Kaluga oblast.

The facility currently employs 31 people and operates in three shifts. The staff is to be increased to 40 people in the future, which will allow the enterprise to reach its estimated capacity.

‘The new feed mill will make it possible to provide EkoNiva’s Kaluga subdivision with the necessary amount of high-quality compound feed. This, in its turn, is essential for ramping up raw milk production. We also hope that our project will become another driver of development for the locals, offering them new jobs’, says Roman Litvinov, Regional Director of EkoNiva Group for Kaluga Oblast.

‘Increasing self-sufficiency in milk is a strategic goal approved by the Food Security Doctrine. The commissioning of the new feed mill creates the right framework for boosting EkoNiva’s performance. We will work together to further develop the dairy industry of our region and entire country’, points out Margarita Filatova, Director of Kaluga Regional Branch of Rosselkhozbank.

Kaluzhskaya Niva has been operating since 2006. The agricultural enterprise is engaged in raw milk production, crop growing and pedigree cattle breeding. It is also a breeding reproducer for Holstein cattle. The subdivision's farms house 44,000 head, of which 20,500 are dairy cows, and produce 630 tonnes of milk per day.