The aim of the study is to develop practical recommendations for the development of dairy cattle breeding in the agricultural enterprises of Ukraine.

For the theoretical and methodological basis of the study was taken of domestic and foreign scholars on the economic efficiency of dairy cattle. The study used modern methods of scientific and economic knowledge of the socio-economic phenomena and sank: historical and monographic, dialectical and abstract-logical, graphical, etc.

Dairy farming is one of the leading places among the branches of the agricultural sector, not only due to the high share in gross output, but also a significant impact on the rural economy and the level of providing the population with food. Agrarian transformation was not conducive to sustainable development of dairy cattle breeding, resulting in decreased the number of dairy herds, the restoration of which requires many years, and milk production per capita since the early 90-ies has declined.

Transformation of economic relations, weakening of state regulation and financial support of development of dairy cattle breeding, increasing disparity of prices on industrial and agricultural products led to lower rates of not only growth, but also reduced the economic efficiency of milk production. Therefore, changes in economic conditions, the need to ensure competitive development of dairy cattle breeding in Ukraine require substantiation of directions of intensification of the processes of intensification of milk production.

The development of dairy cattle breeding in Ukraine for the period of the 70-80-ies of the last century until today. It is revealed that in the 70-80-ies of the last century was conducted by the specialization in livestock of selected types of specialized farms, justifies the size of dairy farms. At the time dairy complexes, in spite of certain complications of functioning, primarily due to the imperfection of management system, achieved high economic results.

Found that since 1990. dairy cattle breeding has undergone significant decline, held a spontaneous collapse of the collective farms with agromachines in decades of experience. As a result, have changed the socio-economic structure of agricultural production, the share of households in milk production. Reorientation of agricultural production to its grinding not contributed to the development of the industry, because small-scale production was not competitive, extensive, nizkoeffektivnyj, and that was the reason for the decrease in milk production.

It is indicated that the main producers of milk remain private farms of the population, whose share in the total volume was 78.9%. Offer raw milk in this category of farms grew steadily, however, over the past three years, the volume of produced milk decreased by 3,1%, indicating the exhaustion of resources in the sector.

It is established that in 2016 the production of milk in all categories of farms decreased vs 2015 233.9 sq kt (2,2 %), including households on 270,3 thousand tons (3.4 percent), while in agricultural enterprises, on the contrary, increased by 36.4 thousand tons (1,4 %).

The calculated structure of milk production by agricultural enterprises. The settlement data indicate that highly concentrated producers made in 2016 about 598,4 thousand tons, or 23.6% of the total. However, their total number is 78 of business entities.

The results of the study identified the main reasons that negatively influenced the development of branch of dairy cattle breeding, namely:

The lack of adequate, stable and timely state support of branch of dairy cattle breeding that puts agricultural enterprises in a difficult financial and economic situation.

Low level of technological equipment of milk production in agricultural enterprises.

Not paying farmers proper attention to reproduction of the herd, cultivation of the necessary quantity and appropriate quality heifers for replacement and increase the breeding stock.

Key words: dairy cattle, dairy farm, agricultural enterprises.