Lyuba Pastushok’s farm’s cows are like her “cheeky children,” she explained in Ukrainian as she walked among her growing herd, softly cooing to them and petting their heads.
Her small family operation in Holoskovychi, a rural community an hour and a half east of the nearest city of Lviv in western Ukraine, had only five cows a few years ago.
She now looks after 25 cows, six of which she purchased after Russian forces invaded the country.
Wrapped in a kerchief against the cold, the Ukrainian matriarch addressed each by name, her voice full of motherly pride.
She attributes her success to the establishment of a Quebec-style co-op in her community, and she believes that a new Canadian dairy plant in the area will help the local industry grow even more.
In the face of the Russian invasion, the project has become an unlikely symbol of defiance.
Russia is stepping on Ukrainian farmers, Pastushok said through a translator during an interview in her farmhouse kitchen, “but we are developing in spite of them. Ukrainians are who we are.”
The $3 million dairy plant, funded by Global Affairs Canada, will use milk from local dairy co-ops to produce milk, yoghurt, sour cream, and hard and soft cheeses. These co-ops will also have a say in how the plant, which will employ 30 to 40 people, is run.
When war broke out last year, construction was already well underway, disrupting every aspect of life in the now-conflicted country.
Investors were initially hesitant to put money into a project in a conflict zone, according to Camil Côté, project officer for SOCODEVI, a development agency based in Quebec City that is spearheading the project.
The invasion halted work for about three months, until Canada offered another $2 million to restart it.
“We survived the winter, just like the rest of Ukraine,” Côté said from Nicaragua.
“We’ve had a few dangerous situations near the plant,” said Andriy Blinovskyy, project manager for Nabil, a corporation of local dairy co-ops.
“There was a missile explosion near the plant, and the electricity transformer station was destroyed about 10 kilometres away.”
After the explosion late last year, workers were forced to continue construction without heat, relying on a generator for power.
When completed, the plant will primarily supply the Lviv region with locally produced goods. Each room’s equipment and brand new, gleaming milk tanks are emblazoned with Canadian flags.
“The factory is regarded as ours. “This is our country, our home, and our family,” Pastushok said.
SOCODEVI pioneered the Quebec-style co-op in Ukraine over a decade ago. It enables small-scale producers with a few cows to band together to negotiate better prices.
“The needs in Ukraine are very similar to what they were in Canada 50 or 60 years ago,” SOCODEVI programme manager Erin Mackie said.
“They were created because farmers needed that collective response to get the value added and generate a better income for themselves,” she explained.
Ukrainian farmers were initially hesitant to join because the cooperative model reminded them of Soviet-era state-run operations. According to Mackie, the development agency worked hard to persuade them that the plans were, in fact, democratic and capitalist.
The model is largely based on Quebec’s Agropur, Canada’s largest dairy co-op.
“This is how Agropur started, with a small co-op where you process milk,” Céline Delhaes, a member of the co-board op’s of directors, said from her farm outside of Montreal.
She claims that negotiating fair prices as a group is much easier than negotiating one-on-one with large companies to process and sell their milk. She also stated that the profits would be reinvested in local communities.
Delhaes visited Ukraine several times prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to coach local farmers and assist them with the administrative aspects of establishing co-ops.
Before the war, the Ukrainian programmes were steadily expanding as more farmers, such as Pastushok, signed up.
“People began selling cows. Some were hospitalised, while others went abroad to work. And it turned out that cultivating the land became prohibitively expensive,” Pastushok explained.
She hopes that more farmers in the area will join her.
“We must band together. “As the proverb goes, ‘one man in the field is not a warrior,” she explained.
According to Mackie, the goal is to create a national movement in Ukraine similar to the dairy industry in Canada, and Canada’s decision to continue with the plant’s construction is a sign of faith in the country’s future.
“I have faith in the Ukrainian people to overcome this,” she said.
The milk plant is by far the most modern-looking structure in the neighbourhood, with its white siding and black roof standing out against the wood and stone neighbours.
Blinovskyy hopes to be able to accept milk from local cows this spring.
“It’s a very powerful sign for everyone — our enemies and our friends — that Canada supports Ukraine and that the plant will begin production,” he said.
