«The Cochran Fellowship Program»: Ukrainian farmers will go to the USA

In 2015, the USDA continues its international program «The Cochran Fellowship Program». This year the opportunity to do fieldwork abroad won Ukraine. Thus, 7 representatives of the Ukrainian agribusiness will participate in a two-week educational program. Five of them — representatives of the Association of Pig Producers of Ukraine.

As part of the program, participants will:

• meet with professionals in the agricultural sector;
• will participate in field studies and visit industrial facilities;
• get hands-on experience;
• attend training courses and seminars, agricultural fairs and so on.

The Cochran Fellowship Program is founded in 1984, by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Its purpose - to ensure the training of specialists from the agricultural sector of developing countries and middle-income countries (during the lifetime of the program its participants were farmers from 123 countries), as well as improve the US trade relations with other countries. The participants can be both the private sector and civil servants. Traditionally, the program lasts 2-3 weeks.

Association of Pig Producers of Ukraine is unprofitable, voluntary organization. The creation date is July 14, 2011. Now APPU joins 32 households, the sow herds of which compose 35% of nationwide capacities. The main objective of Association is to protect corporate rights and interests in the field of pigbreeding, to attain the worldwide standards of manufacturing owing to implementation of modern technologies.

It is a reminder that in April 2013 the APPU won the grant from the project of International Technical support «Agroinvest in Ukraine» that is financed by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), one of its tasks is to «Create the ongoing working groups under Ministry of Agrarian policy and Food for revision of current regulatory legal acts governing the pig breeding field in Ukraine. The duration of grant is 20 months (from 23.07.2013 to 23.03.2015)».