The dissertation research is devoted to the analysis and maintenance of milk production stability. The author's approach to the interpretation of the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development of agricultural enterprises is proposed. The sustainable development of an agricultural enterprise is based on a combination of economic development with environmental safety, which contributes to social development and global evolutionism. The existing methodological approaches to assessing the economic sustainability of production in agricultural enterprises and private households are generalized and the relevant system of indicators is supplemented. It is advisable to use multidimensional comparisons to determine a comprehensive sustainable development assessment of an agricultural enterprise on an integrated basis. The advantages of such approach are in the possibilities to obtain regression models of the enterprise’s sustainable development integrated assessments with the parameters of high degree of reliability.
The comparative assessment of the domestic and the EU countries legislation done in the research allows to establish the existence of differences in the definition of the statistic survey’s subject. The subject of agricultural statistics is "agricultural ownership" in most developed countries, which is characterized by the following parameters: agricultural production, a single, separate, both technically and economically productive entity. In domestic practice this category includes legal entities – business entities in the agribusiness, and doesn’t include private households.
The analysis of the current state of dairy cattle breeding development in Ukraine is carried out. It is substantiated state financing necessity of measures to transform private households, which keep three or more cows, into small agribusiness entities, the development of service cooperatives, the completion of the program of identification of agricultural animals, the creation of information database, as well as the development of appropriate legislation.
In order to improve the pedigree and productive peculiarities of cattle kept in private households, public administration and local governments should establish cooperation between agricultural enterprises and households in livestock breeding.
A set of organizational and economic directions of milk production economic sustainability increase in agricultural enterprises and households is proposed in order to determine the strategies for their adaptation to changes in the operating environment.
Measures to increase the level of production culture, the innovative solutions use, the standardized use of living and tangible labor are proposed, which will help to increase the sustainability of agricultural enterprises – producers of dairy products.
The need to introduce certain requirements for feeding cows in the Technical Regulation "Raw milk production and quality and safety management" is substantiated. In particular, feed for cows must meet the animals energy need to create conditions for the production of milk by the animal and to ensure its viability as a living organism. It is expedient to allocate in a separate paragraph of this regulation requirements to workers, in particular, the personnel involved in technological operations of raw milk production should have the appropriate qualification and observe rules of labor protection in dairy cattle breeding.
The principles for formation of the system of milk quality and safety control in the territorial dairy cluster are generalized: a guarantee of safe production for the consumer health; integrated approach to quality and safety control; responsibility for product safety is shared between all entities involved in the technological process of milk production and processing; independence and objectivity; complexity; transparency of the control mechanism; unity of methodological approaches to control. It is proved that a necessary condition for effective quality control of raw materials is the use of equipment of certified laboratories of industrial scientific and research institutes and higher educational institutions of agricultural profile to assess the agricultural products quality.
Key words: sustainability, sustainable development, agricultural enterprise, dairy farming, quality, efficiency.
