Organizational and economic features of the Chelyabinsk region's milk production

The article deals with the state of dairy cattle breeding as a sub-sector of agriculture in the region and factors that affect the production efficiency and intensification in groups with different size of livestock. Recently positive changes have been observed in milk production: a positive dynamics of production in some regions, the implementation of the National Project and the State Programme for the Development of Agricultural Sector, in which livestock farming has been marked as a priority. This has led to an intensification of production in the milk industry and the creation of large dairy farms (mega-farms). Despite this fact, there isn't a competitive level of production efficiency in the industry. This is due to several reasons, both common to the Russian agricultural sector and typical for the region. There are three categories of milk producers in the Chelyabinsk region: agricultural enterprises (AE); private farms (PF); peasant farm holdings (PFH).The author has determined the effect of plant concentration on industrial and economic indicators of the industry development in dynamics. The growth of dairy herds associated with higher costson modern technology of keeping, feeding and milking cows stands out among the dairy breeding ef-ficiency indicators in 2007-2012. The recoupment of expenses is ensured by a higher quality of products, and hence, higher merchantability and a selling price. In this case the volume of sold milk ensures the payback of capital innovative technologies, reducing operating costs. The indicator of milk merchantability to 2010 inclusively tended to grow with an evident superiority of large-scale farms. The level of concentration of livestock in farms leads to a reduction of costs. The level of profitability is higher in households with a high level of cow production and their concentrations.